Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
AGORA
RESULTS OF EXCAVATIONS
CONDUCTED BY
THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL STUDIES AT ATHENS
VOLUME I
PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
BY
EVELYN B. HARRISON
A0P
~sa~
FJ":~~A
INTRODUCTION.......... 1
.............................
..........
CATALOGUE ........ . . ............ . . .... . . .. . 9
1 Nos. 1, 3, 7, 11, 14, 17, 19, 20, 25, 28, 35, 36, 87, 39, 41, 43, 44, 46, 51, 56, 57, 64.
2 Nos. 1, 3, 7, 28, 56, 64.
3 Portrait head of Antoninus Pius found near the Temple of Apollo Patroos (Hekler, Arch. Anz., 1935, cols. 404f., figs. 7
and 8).
4 B.C.H., XXXIX, 1915, pp. 241-401.
1
2 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
The publication of material from an excavation, even when, as here, the finding-placesoffer
little reliable evidence for chronology, has a certain special value. The excavator must examine
each piece impartially and face the problems that it presents. Though he may sometimes find
himself wishing that a given piece could be buried again quietly and forgotten, he can never
have his wish. If a single marble refuses to conformto his most cherishedtheory, it is the theory,
not the marble, that must go. And if there are questions to which he cannot find the answers,he
must be willing to say so openly and to offer the questions to others for solution. The Agora
portraits interest us not because they are unique, but because they are representative. Most of
the questions that they raise cannot be answeredon their evidence alone. The detailed attention
here given to this single group may seem disproportionate when one considers that a much
larger mass of material of equal value lies neglected in the storerooms of the Athens National
Museum. It is to be hoped, however, that the present study will demonstrate sufficiently the
interest of such material to inspire similarly detailed treatment of other Athenian portraits in
the future.
FINDING-PLACES
The finding-placesof the Agora portraits may be grouped under six main headings:
I. Herulian debris.This includes not only destruction levels on the floors of houses destroyed
by the northern barbarianswho sacked Athens in A.D. 267 but also filling of wells and holes
with debris resulting from the cleaning-up that took place following the disaster. Portraits in
this group must have been made before 267.
II. Thefilling of the"'Valerian Wall." This wall, built aroundA.D. 280 as a fortificationbehind
which the Athenians might retire in case the barbarians returned, was constructed almost
entirely of re-used material. The two outer faces of the wall consisted largely of squaredblocks:
architecturalmembers of buildings that had sufferedin the invasion, inscribed stelai, the shafts
of herms and the like. Into the filling were thrown smaller stones of irregular shape, a class
which occasionally included portrait heads. Since the two Agora portraits from the "Valerian
Wall" are very much earlier than the third century, the terminus ante quem that the wall
provides is of no importancefor their dating, but for some of the portraits of kosmetai discovered
in 1861 in another section of the wall, the date of the wall itself is of vital importance.5
III. Late Roman walls and fills. This includes post-Herulian structures and deposits down to
and including the seventh century.
IV. Medieval and modernwalls and fills. By far the largest number of portraits comes from
such contexts.
V. Marbledumpsin theexcavations.A piece for which such a provenienceis listed is one which,
being fragmentary and poorly preserved, was not recognized at the time it was unearthed as
being worth recordingbut was later noticed and brought in to be inventoried. Only one of our
portrait heads comes from such a context. It is probable, however, that many fragments from
the shattered torsos of draped portrait statues of the Roman period now form part of the marble
piles in the Agora.
VI. Unspecifiedcontextsoutside the Agora. Occasionally a workman employed in the excava-
tions brings in a piece of sculpture that has been found outside, and this is then inventoried
6 On the question of the date of the "Valerian Wall" and the portraits from it, see below, p. 91.
INTRODUCTION 3
along with the Agora finds and kept in the Agora storerooms. Two such foundlings have been
included here, since they are pieces of some interest which would not otherwise be published.
The following list will make it clear how much (and how little) relation there is between the
date of most pieces and their finding-places:
I. Herulian debris
No. 11 Julio-Claudian
14 Early Flavian
19 Trajanic
30, 35, 36 Antonine
38 A.D. 215-225
41 A.D. 225-250
48 (?) Gallienian
II. "Valerian Wall"
7 Augustan
23 Hadrianic
III. Late Roman
3 First century B.C.
8 Julio -Claudian
15, 18 Flavian
20 Trajanic
25, 56 Hadrianic
26 (?), 28, 57-61, 63 Early Antonine
39 A.D. 215-225
45 Period of TrebonianusGallus
47 Third century (?)
51 Second half of third century (?)
IV. Medieval and Modern
4, 5, 6 First century B.C.
9, 10 Julio-Claudian
16, 17 Flavian
21, 22 Trajanic (2)
24, 27 Hadrianic
29, 81, 32, 33, 84 Antonine
1 Hadrianic or Antonine copy of a classical Greek type
37 Caracallan
40, 42 A.D. 225-250
43 A.D. 235-250
44 Middle of third century
46 Gallienian (2)
49 Gallienian
50, 52 A.D. 270-3800
53, 54, 55 Fourth century
64 Fifth century
1*
4 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
V. MarbleDump
12 Julio-Claudian
VI. OutsidetheAgora
2 First century B.C.
13 Julio-Claudian.
MATERIAL
All our portraits are of marble. The ancient Agora must have been rich in bronze portrait
statues of both the Greek and the Roman periods, but it was scarcely to be expected that any
of these would survive intact in a city which has been constantly inhabited since antiquity and
has undergone so many vicissitudes. What was not stolen by the civilized plunderersof Athens
or destroyed by the barbarianwould almost certainly have been melted down in times of need,
military or economic. Thus we find in the excavations only the remains of bronzes too utterly
shattered to have been salvageable even in antiquity, tiny corroded bits that may once have
been parts of great statues, but what parts we are no longer able to discern."It is only the works
in marble, a cheaper material than bronze and used by and large for less important portraits,
that have come down to us in a form that can still be studied. By far the greater number of
these are made of Pentelic, that is to say of white Attic marble.7The quality of the stone used
varies greatly, and there is generally a direct relationshipbetween the quality of the marble and
the carefulness of the workmanship. One portrait, No. 4, a bust belonging to the first century
B.C., is of fine-grainedParian marble. Three, Nos. 19, 20 and 23, are of coarse-grainedisland
marble. These three are perhaps all products of a single workshop and belong to a period when
a hard, polished surface finish was considered desirable. Not only in their finish but in their
modelling these portraits are reminiscent of work in hard, colored stone. It may be that the
beginning of a vogue for porphyry in the time of Trajan8had something to do with the prefer-
ence for this kind of surfacein Trajanicand early Hadrianic sculpture.
FORMS OF PORTRAITS
Most of the portraits in the round had originally one of three forms: (1) portrait statues,
either carved in one piece or with the head carved in a separate piece and set into the torso;
(2) busts; and (3) herms. A fourth possibility, that of reclining figures on the lids of sarcophagi,
cannot be ruled out, though there is no evidence to suggest specifically that any of our heads
comes from such a figure.9In Roman times the majority of full-length statues had the heads
carved separately from the bodies. A poorergrade of marble could be used for the perfunctorily
carved draped torso; only the head demanded a more expensive material.'0 The junction be-
6 The
fragments of bronze statues from the debris of the Odeion (Thompson, Hesperia, XIX, 1950, p. 82, pl. 54) are better
preserved than most.
7 In Athens a piece of white marble which is not island marble may generally be assumed to be Pentelic. It is perhaps
more difficult to identify Pentelic marble with certainty in the case of pieces not known to have any connection with Attica.
8 See Delbriick, Antike
Porphyrwerke(Studien zur spdtantikenKunstgeschichte,VI, Berlin and Leipzig, 1932), p. 19.
9 Sarcophagus heads are generally life-sized and carved in very much the same style as other
portrait heads, so that there
is no sure criterion for distinguishing them. They sometimes have extra marble at the back of the neck to
strengthen it,
but this is not always the case (cf. L'Orange, Studien, figs. 14 and 23).
10 Carving of the head separately, though especially common in the Roman period, was not confined to it. The economy
made possible by the use of small blocks of marble and the greater ease with which a head could be worked if set at a con-
venient height on the workbench led to the use of this method even in classical Greek works in which the
draped torso was
carved with great care and in marble of good quality (e. g. the torso of the Athena from the east pediment of the
Hephaisteion,
Thompson, Hesperia, XVIII, 1949, pl. 51). Cf. also B. Ashmole, J. H. S., LXXI, 1951, p. 19, note 40.
INTRODUCTION 5
tween the flesh and draperyat the base of the neck was the logical place for the joint between
the two pieces. The torso was hollowed to receive a tenon on the bottom of the piece which
comprised the head and neck. Sometimes this tenon was deep and had the form of a frustum of
a cone (e.g. Nos. 17, 23 and 51); sometimes it was made to fit a shallower cutting (e.g. Nos. 11
and 24). Ten Agora portrait heads in all (Nos. 1, 10, 11, 17, 23, 24, 35, 36, 51 and 52) have tenons
for setting into drapedtorsos. It is typical of the fortunes of excavation that none of the portrait
heads that we have in the Agora fits any of the torsos that are preserved. Of the latter the most
notable is that of a colossal statue of Hadrian in armor (No. 56). Several male torsos in civilian
dress (Nos. 57-62) wear the himation. The only one wearing a toga is a strangely square late
Roman statue of a magistrate (No. 64) which had the head (now lost) carved in one piece with
the body.
The female portraits must have employed the familiar Hellenistic draped types that were
repeated over and over in Roman portrait statues of women. A fragment to which no head can
be assigned (No. 63) repeats a type that occurs at Olympiain no less than four female statues of
Roman date. Roman statues in which the head was covered by a veil or by a part of the mantle
drawn up over the head generally had the top part of the head-covering carved in one piece
with the head," but the Agora has at least one example (No. 33) of a differentscheme: the face
and the front of the neck, together with what hair appearsfrom beneath the edge of the mantle,
are carved in a separate piece which is dowelledinto the hollow hood of the mantle behind. This
scheme is found in several female statues of the first century B.C. from Magnesia on the Mae-
ander.12 A second Agora portrait (No. 12) probably comes from a statue of this type, though it
is too fragmentary to permit a certain decision.
Heads of statues carved all in one piece naturally break off at the neck, as do those which are
broken from busts or herms. In the many cases in which we have only the head, broken off in
this way, it is impossibleto say which of these forms the portrait originallyhad. The two fourth
century female heads (Nos. 54 and 55) probably come from statues, since they have extra
marble left at the back of the neck to strengthen it.13There are five portrait busts in our collec-
tion: Nos. 4, 7, 14, 19 and 29. One complete portrait herm (No. 25) is preserved, and fragments
of the upper part of the herm shaft survive in a second (No. 39). It is quite probablethat many
of our heads that are broken off at the neck come from herms. Since the rectangularherm shaft
forms a useful building stone once the head is removed, many heads of herms must have been
deliberately knocked off for this purpose. Probably not all were so fortunate as the heads of the
kosmetai which were used in the same structure with their shafts; many must have been left
lying or thrown away as rubbish. Inscriptions tell us that others besides kosmetai had portraits
in herm form'4 and also that the same person might be representedboth in a herm and in a full
length statue.'5 Herms were commonly set up out of doors and in porticoes, palaestrae and the
like (though they occur also in the atria of houses at Herculaneumand Pompeii); the bust was
essentially an indoor form of portrait. Statuettes also might serve for the adornmentof houses.
Our No. 9, a miniature portrait head, and No. 20, about one-third life-size, may have belonged
to statuettes.
11 A
good example in which the jointing shows clearly in the photograph is Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 173, showing a portrait
of Augustus in the Terme.
12
Watzinger, Magnesia am Maeander, p. 199, figs. 198-200.
13 Being fourth century, they would not be from sarcophagus figures, since sarcophagi were no longer made in Attica
by that time.
14E. g. our No. 25.
15
E. g. I.G., II, 3667 and 3668.
6 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
Only a few of our portraits are definitely over life-size. Nos. 17, 28, 34 and 54 are sufficiently
above the normal dimensions to suggest that the persons represented are something more than
ordinary Athenian citizens. Some other portraits (e.g. Nos. 39 and 44) exceed only slightly the
measurements of the average human face and so have been counted as life-sized, since that is
how they appear to the casual observerand that is no doubt how they were thought of by their
sculptors. No. 39 is a herm portrait and No. 44 may well have been one too. It is possible that
less necessity was felt here to adhere strictly to natural size than in heads of statues, which
would requirebodies in proportion.
Those portraits in relief that we have very probably come from gravestones which originally
stood in the Kerameikos cemetery. In none of them is there more preservedthan the head, or a
fragment thereof, with some of the immediately adjacent background adhering. Since these
heads are intended as portraits, they are included here although they are generallyless individual
than the full-scale portraits in the round and cannot be so closely dated. Nos. 5, 6, 13, 21, 22,
27 and 32 belong to this class. Their positions in the chronological series must be taken as
approximate at best.
Nos. 30, 35, and 36, all life-sized portraits belonging to the Antonine age, are unfinishedand
provide interesting illustrations of the final stages of work in the completion of a Roman
portrait. No. 35 shows that the eyes and eyebrows were engraved before the final smoothing of
the flesh surfaces. Measuring-pointssurvive on both Nos. 35 and 36. These would seem to imply
mechanical reproduction of the portraits from models, but the minor variations in details and
dimensions that are apparent when one comparesdifferentAthenian copies of a single portrait16
make it clear that portraits were copied with rather more freedom than were the masterpieces
of classical art that were reproducedfor the Roman market. The presenceof unfinishedportraits
in the Agora is not surprising, since we know that there were sculptors' workshops near by.17
Moresurprisingis the fact that all three of these Antonine portraits were found in contexts that
can be associated with the Herulian invasion which took place about a century after they were
made. No. 36 was found in a hole in the floor of a sculptor's workshop; it may have been kept
at first as a sample or for a possible re-use of the marble and later as a curiosity. No. 35, found
with debris from a dwellinghouse,seems to have been used as decoration, or perhaps again as a
curiosity, an "antique."
Of the actual sculptors who created our portraits we know very little.'8 Some portraits show
technical similarities that suggest a common source, but in making such rapprochements I
have preferredto use the word "workshops,"as being a ratherindefinite term and so appropriate
to the present state of our knowledge. I am inclined to believe that if one were to subject all the
Athenian portraits of the Roman period now extant to a systematic technical and stylistic
analysis it might be possible to distinguish hands and workshops as they are distinguished, for
example, in the study of red-figuredvases. This kind of study would be particularly interesting
if it could be combined with a study of other types, e.g. copies and architectural sculpture, in
order to determine how far they overlap and to what extent they influence one another. Such
16 Compare, for example, our No. 49 with the portrait in Eleusis of which it is a replica
(P1. 46, e). The distance from
the mouth-line to the upper wrinkle of the forehead is 0.12 m. in the Eleusis head and 0.129 m. in the
Agora head. In the
two portraits L'Orange, Studien, cat. nos. 11 and 12, figs. 25-27 and 29 (no. 12 shown in our
P1. 46, d) there is a 5 mm.
difference in the distances from the mouth-line to the forehead hair.
17See below, p. 49 and p. 92, note 16.
18 P. Graindor,in
Athlnes sous Auguste, pp. 210-245 and Athines de Tib1rea Trajan, pp. 171-188 lists and discusses those
Athenian sculptors of the periods in question whose names have come down to us in inscriptions or in
literary references. The
names of sculptors who made portraits are mostly found inscribed on bases or headless torsos. The makers of the
heads that he mentions are all anonymous. portrait
INTRODUCTION 7
a large-scale commissioner of sculpture as Herodes Atticus'9 must have had a whole army of
sculptors working for him, and these may well have tended to work together in what could be
called a "school." In times of less prosperity things may have been done on a more individual
basis.
SUBJECTS
The variety of persons representedin the Agora portraits is even greater than the variety of
their forms. Romans and Greeksof both sexes and of all ages are portrayed. The list of kinds of
honorary inscriptions given in I.G., II2, 31, Table of Contents, VII, Class 8 may be taken as a
list of possibilities: (1) Roman emperors, (2) kings and queens, (3) Attic magistrates, priests
and sacred boys and girls, (4) kosmetai, gymnastic officials and ephebes, (5) men distinguished
in civil and military life and men famous in arts and letters, (6) other Greek men, (7) Attic
women, (8) Roman men of note, (9) Roman women, (10) illustrious men of an earlier age
honored in Roman times. Portraits of all these classes may have been set up in or near the
Agora in ancient times. Section (1), Roman emperors(which includes empresses),is represented
by No. 33 in our collection and doubtless by several others not so readily identifiable. (2) is
probably not represented by any of the pieces that we have, though we cannot, of course, be
sure of this. Sections (3) and (4) probably comprise a large proportionof our portraits. No. 25,
the only one identified by an inscription, represents Moiragenes the son of Dromokles, the
eponymosof the tribe Hippothontis. Several portraits (Nos. 3, 17, 24, 29, 40, 43 and 49) have
fillets or wreaths which probably mark them as priests, though No. 17 may possibly be an
emperorso summarily renderedthat we have not succeeded in identifying him. The subject of
the female portrait No. 35 must be either a priestess or a lady of the imperial family. Three
heads of little boys, Nos. 41, 42 and 46, may represent children initiated into the Eleusinian
Mysteries. No. 44 shows so strong a resemblanceto a portrait of an ephebe from the "Valerian
Wall" that it seems not at all unlikely that it represents a kosmetes, and there may well be
other portraits of kosmetai among our group. No. 1 is the only head we have belonging to
group (10), though there is ample evidence that others existed.20
That the women in our group are outnumbered by the men (15 out of 55 heads) is not sur-
prising. Except for gravestones, where the representationof the sexes would naturally be about
equal, there are fewer occasions for honoring women with portraits. It is probable, accordingly,
that among our female portraits there is a higherproportionof members of the imperial family
to native Athenians than there is among the men. It can be only by chance that there are no
female portraits of the third century preserved in our series, for there are a number of them
among the unpublishedportraits in the Athens National Museum.
Nos. 20 and 45 may represent negroes, though neither is so skillful and unmistakable a race
portrait as the fine Attic head in Berlin identified by Graindoras Memnon, one of the favorite
pupils of Herodes Atticus.21 In these Athenian portraits no inference as to the social status of
the person portrayed can be drawnfrom his race. The lady, No. 20, wears an elaborateheaddress
that suggests rank or at least wealth. No. 45, on the other hand, is so thug-like in appearance
that it is easier to think of him as an athlete than as a member of the upper social circlesof a
university town.
"1 Cf. K. Neugebauer, Die Antike, X, 1934, pp. 92-121.
20 E. g. a headless herm inscribed "Anakreon" (Inv. I 2061). H. A. Thompson, Hesperia, XIX, 1950, p. 132, suggests that
the seated figures in front of the Odeion represented famous philosophers of the past.
21 Blimel, Rimische Bildnisse, R 73, pl. 45; Graindor, B.C.H., XXXIX, 1915, pp. 402-412.
8 THE ATHENIAN AGORA:PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
For the most part, however, the people of our portraits must be the members of the late
Athenian aristocracy, people whose pride in their ancestry increased as their achievements in
the contemporary world diminished in importance. It is easy to laugh at these pompous little
people as we read the lengthy genealogies on their statue-bases and the absurdly archaistic
verse in which they too often couch their feeble claims to immortality, but when we look at their
faces sympathy follows scorn. It is true, as they say, that they are the descendants of Perikles
and Themistokles, and it is equally true that we are theirs. No countenance from the great age
of Greecewhich holds our admiration today as it held theirs then is so close to the spirit of our
own times as the face of the little boy, No. 46, who looks out at the world with anxious eyes,
unreassured either by the noble blood that runs in his veins or by the wreath of the antique
religion that encircleshis head.
CATALOGUE
x Arch. Anz., 1934, col. 260, no. 4. Shear, Hesperia, IV, 1935, p. 402, mentions this identification without accepting it,
preferringto leave the portrait unidentified. Graindor, Bustes et statues-portraitsd'Egypte romaine,p. 74, note 301, is equally
skeptical.
2 (1) A double herm in
Naples in which Herodotos is joined with Thucydides (Bernoulli, G.I., I, pls. 18-19; A.B., 128-9;
Laurenzi, pl. 5, no. 19). (2) A single herm in Naples (Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 16; Bernoulli, op. cit., pl. 19). (3) A single
herm in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (P1. 43, a; Schefold, Bildnisse, p. 161, 2 - erroneously said to be in
Naples; Richter, Handbookof the Classical Collection[New York, 1930], p. 272, fig. 192; Graindor, Bustes et statues-portraits
d'gypte romaine, no. 26, p. 74, pl. 23).
3 Loc. cit., above, note 1.
4 Hair on forehead: Bernoulli, op. cit., Miinztafel II, no. 6; Schefold, op. cit., p. 173, no. 22. Bald forehead: Bernoulli, loc.
cit., no. 5; Schefold, loc. cit., no. 23.
5 Other copies exist in Berlin (Bltimel, Katalog der antiken Skulpturenim Berliner Museum, V, K 196, pl. 8); in the Alber-
tinum in Dresden (A.B., 767-768); and in Castle Erbach in Germany.
6 Laurenzi, p. 93, no. 19;
7 MargareteBieber informs Bliimel, op. cit., p. 4, no. K 196.
me that she believes the portraits of both Herodotos and Thucydides were created during the
period of the Peloponnesian War.
8 Schefold,
Bildnisse, p. 160. The resemblance in the herm portraits to the portrait of Thucydides seems to me scarcely
great enough to justify the suggestion mentioned by Schefold that the Herodotos type was invented in Roman times as a
pendant to the latter, and in the Agora portrait little resemblance to the Thucydides is to be seen. The addition of hair, if
it is an addition, might conceivably be explained, however, by the desire to create a
a double herm with the Thucydides, avoiding the awkwardjuxtaposition of hair and bald type that would combine gracefully in
head in the joint between the heads.
The decorative simplification of the split beard is possibly an argument in favor of a
classicistic origin. Early fourth century
portraits (e. g. Lysias, Plato) generally show a simple mass for the beard. Late fourth century and Hellenistic works often
divide the mass, but in a freer form than we have here. The portrait on the coins of
Halikarnassos, which Schefold, loc. cit.,
calls early Hellenistic, shows this freer sort of division. So far as I am aware, we have no documented case of the
invention
of a portrait in Roman times to serve as a pendant to a traditional
type.
CATALOGUE 11
2. PORTRAIT OF A MAN, FIRST HALF OF THE FIRST CENTURY B.C. Plate 2.
Inv. S 608.Broughtin by a workman
fromoutsidethe Agoraarea,January,1936.
Pentelic marble.H. 0.23 m., W. 0.19 m.
Headbrokenoffin middleof neck.Topof head,madein a separatepiece,nowmissing.Thejointsurface,
a smoothplaneat an angleof about450to thefrontplaneof the face, dressedwith a smallpoint;heavier
pickmarksvisiblein the centralportion.In the centera smallrounddowelholeabout1 cm.in diameter.
Thisjoint surfacethe best preservedpart of portrait.All the sculpturedsurfacevery muchcorrodedand
battered.
The portrait is that of a man in early middle age. The head is thrown back and looks up toward
the properright, the neck extended forward. The Adam's apple projects and the tendons of the
neck are stretched. The hair follows a more or less Polykleitan scheme, with a parting above the
forehead like that of the Doryphoros (though here shifted a bit left of center), pointed locks in
front of the ears, and the back hair swept forward on the neck. The hair seems to have been
only slightly curly. The modelling of the locks within the hair mass has disappearedcompletely
in the erosion of the surface. The foreheadis sharply divided by a horizontal center line, and the
lower part projects heavily, most of all in the center over the nose. There was no indentation in
profile between the forehead and the nose. The eyes are deep-set and rather small, rolled back
under the brows in the Scopasian manner that shows the under surface of the upper lids as
wider than their front surface. There are crow's-feetat the outer cornersof the eyes and diagonal
creases from the sides of the nose past the corners of the mouth. The mouth is pulled down
slightly at the corners.
This head shows in exaggerated form the divergence of the axes of head and neck that is
characteristic of the "centrifugal" style in Hellenistic portraits,' while the heavy features, the
deep-set eyes and the uplifted gaze convey the "pathetic" expressionthat regularlyaccompanies
such centrifugal composition. This style has its origin and finds its best expressionin the second
century B.C.,2 but the closest parallels to our head are two portraits in the Athens National
Museum in which the style has grown hard and linear and which are therefore regularly dated
in the first century B.C., some time before the middle of the century.3These two portraits were
found together and are of similar workmanship,so presumably contemporary. The portrait of
the younger man (P1.43,b) has the same bulging lower forehead as has our head, the same wide-
based nose and the same heavy toruses of eyebrowsoverhangingthe small eyes. In the age of the
person represented our head stands between the young man and his older companion. The
portrait of the older man goes much farther than ours in the representationof the wrinkles and
small surface irregularities;it may well be that the influence of Roman Republican portraiture
is making itself felt here.4 Ours, on the other hand, like the head of the younger man, is totally
Greek in its effect. Both are strongly generalized, and there is no reason to think that either
renders very exactly the features of the person portrayed. The workmanship of our portrait,
though the condition of the surface makes it difficult to judge, seems to have been of the same
summary kind that produced the other two heads. The renderingof the hair on the side of the
head in the portrait of the older man, particularly the ends of locks swept forward behind the
ears, is very like that of our head. The Doryphoros forehead hair does not occur in the other
heads, but such a Polykleitanism is by no means surprisingin a work of the first century B.C.
A parallel for the top of the head added in a separate piece of marble is to be found in a
first century B.C. portrait in Thera where the top part is still preserved.5
Our portrait, even if one considers it apart from its unhappy state of preservation, can
scarcely rank as a significant work, but as a purely Hellenistic portrait from the period when
12 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
Roman concepts of portraiture were just beginning to influence Greek style, it forms a good
starting-point for our Roman series.
1 Cf.
2
Michalowski, Delos, XIII, p. 4.
E.g. the splendid bronze portrait head from Delos (Michalowski,op. cit., pp. 1 ff., pis. 1-6) and the portrait of Attalos I of
Pergamon (Altertilmervon Pergamon,VII, pis. 31-2; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 75 a and b) with which Michalowski compares it.
s Athens N.M. 320 (the older man, A.B. 885-6; Lawrence, Later GreekSculpture,pl. 59 b; Schweitzer, fig. 81; Buschor,
Das hellenistischeBildnis, fig. 38) and 321 (A.B. 399-400; Lawrence, op. cit., pl. 59 a). In A.B. the head of the younger
man is called Julio-Claudian, that of the older man possibly earlier. For the current dating to the second quarter of the 1st
century B.C. see Buschor, op. cit., p. 46 and Schweitzer, p. 72 (N.M. 320 only).
4 Cf. Schweitzer, p. 72: "eine griechische Stilgrundlage, die von einer ersten Einwirkung des stadtr6mischenPortriits
getroffen wird."
6 Thera, I, pl. 17, p. 224, no. 2.
1 T. L. Shear dates it simply to the Republican Period. F. Poulsen, Problemeder r5mischenIkonographie,p. 29, finds the
Agora portrait so close in "expression and style" to a portrait in Copenhagen which he identifies as that of Attalos III that
he feels it m'ustbe considered a Hellenistic work of the second century B.C. Buschor, Das hellenistischeBildnis, p. 49, groups
it with works which he attributes to the forties of the first century B.C.
2
Schweitzer, pp. 72ff.
3 F. Poulsen points out (M6langesGlotz,p. 752) that the roll is originally the distinctive attribute of the gods, from which
it becomes the property of priests. He makes no distinction in significance between the type which is tied in back like a regular
diadem and that which is simply a hoop. He suggests that where the roll is double or triple it must be made of metal. In the
case of a simple one such as we have here it is impossible to distinguish the material.
4 Shear, Hesperia, IV, 1935, pp. 404f., suggested as parallels certain portraits which he took to represent priests of Serapis.
None of these parallels is exact, however, and indeed the whole question of the insignia of priests of Serapis is far from
settled. Whether or not the rolled diadem with the star in front was worn by priests of Serapis, it has nothing whatsoever
to do with our portrait. The star does not occur outside Egypt (Graindor, Bustes et statues-portraitsd'Egypte romaine, p. 57),
and the Egyptian portraits which have it do not have shaven heads. No fixed connection has been established between the
shaven head and the simple type of roll that our portrait wears. The Athenian shaven priest in Copenhagen(see below, note 13)
is without any sort of stephane; a shaven priest from the Agora dating from the third century after Christ, No. 43, wears
a wreath of laurel. The Roman portraits identified as priests of Isis commonly have a scar on the head, but no wreath or
diadem. Probably with priests of Isis as with priests of the imperial cult the headgear varied from place to place. The shaving
is a more basic matter.
5 Though the majority of the priesthoods of Isis in Greek cities must have
been held by Greeks, an inscription from
Priene shows that an Egyptian priest was required there for certain elements in the ritual (Nilsson, Geschichteder griechischen
Religion [Mifller,Handbuchder Altertumswissenschaft,Munich, 1940], II, p. 120; Inschriften von Priene, 195).
6 Delos, XIII, pp. 29ff., pls. 23-24. Michalowski is interested especially in emphasizing the basically Hellenic qualities
of the work in spite of the Roman influence observable in its surface details. Schweitzer, on the other hand, stresses the fact
that a Roman style, specifically, the "toreutic" style of his group called "portraits of old Romans" is plainly reflected in the
Greek work (p. 78).
SE.g., Schweitzer, figs. 91, 92, 96.
8 Ibid., figs. 85-86.
9 Ibid., figs. 100-101.
10See below, No. 4, note 1.
11 This portrait will be published by Edward Capps, Jr. in his forthcoming volume on sculpture found at Corinth in the
excavations of the American School of Classical Studies (Corinth,IX, ii, no. 93, Inv. 1445 a).
12 For the ancient sources, see Pauly-Wissowa, R.E., Suppl. IV, col. 1033. The date is generally given as around 44 B.C.,
but William B. Dinsmoor informs me that calculations based on the ancient sources indicate 45 B.C. as the actual year of
the foundation.
13 Billedtavler,pl. 34, no. 458 a; Schweitzer, figs. 93 and 107; A.B. 1151-2; Buschor, Das hellenistischeBildnis, fig. 43.
14N.M. no. 331; A.B. 813.
CATALOGUE 15
4. PORTRAIT BUST OF A MAN, MIDDLE OF THE FIRST CENTURY B.C. Plate 4.
Inv. S 739.FoundMay2, 1936in an earlyByzantinecontextnorthof the Athens-Piraeus
electricrailway
(G3).
Parianmarble.H. 0.43m., W.0.171m., H. chinto crown0.23m.
Fine-grained
Nosebrokenoff andchinandmouthchipped.A piecegougedout of centerof forehead.Bothearsbroken
off.Tenonandedgesof bustchipped.
The portrait, a bust made with a tenon for setting into a base, represents a mature man with
a full face und thinning hair. The bust is narrow; it does not extend as far as the outer ends of
the clavicles on either side. The head is turned slightly toward the right. The hair, very flatly
carved in short, linear, pointed locks, is nowhere thick or long enough to alter the contours of
the head. It is brushed vertically down on the left side of the head, sweeping toward the right
on the back of the head and forward on the right side. The front hair recedes deeply at the
temples, leaving a narrowtongue of very short hair in the center. The surface of the broad face
is most carefully smoothed, and there is little to break its continuity. A bit of original surface
that survives above the bridge of the nose shows that there was a horizontal wrinkle in the
forehead. Two vertical frown-wrinklesbetween the eyebrows and a deep line across the bridge
of the nose suggest that the original expressionwas severe. The lips appear to have been tightly
closed. The eyebrows are broken away, but a concave surface above the right eyebrow suggests
that they projected. The deep-set eyes are small, with thin, fine lids, and the surfaces surround-
ing them are smoothly concave. At the outer cornersof the eyes are crow's-footwrinklesso tiny
as to be practically invisible. Similarly fine wrinkles, like thin scratches, appear on the sides of
the neck. The modelling is nowhere neglected; it is simply smoothed and subdued beyond the
point where it can be effective.
It is hard to find an exact parallel for the surface quality of this portrait, but the cut of the
hair and the facial type are most closely paralleled in portraits of Roman type dated to the
second third of the first century B.C. Schweitzer's "Sorex group"' has the same short-cut hair
which does not alter the outline of the skull and the same hairline, with an are over the forehead
receding into cornersfrom which the side hair swings down in an S-curve to a point in front of
the ears. Even the horizontal fold across the bridge of the nose and the two vertical frown-
wrinkles seem to be typical of the Sorex group, though Sorex himself does not have them.2 In
the Sorex group Schweitzer remarks the disappearance of the deeply carved linear detail
characteristic of the immediately precedingphase of Roman portraiture.The underlyingplastic
structure of the head is now expressedthrough strong highlights and shadows in a continuously
moving surface.3 In our portrait only the negative part of this change seems to have taken
place. The "wood-cut" detail has been smoothed away, but the contrast of light and shade has
not yet taken its place. This may be due partly to the influence of the material; the very fine
white marble invites refinement of surface and minimizes the effect of shadow. It may be due
also in part to a failure on the part of the Greek sculptor to understand completely the Roman
style which he was following. That the Greek artists were not always so unsuccessful, however,
is shown by a fine head from Cyprusin the British Museum, which even surpasses our bust in
the delicacy of surface detail (note the minute engravedlines in the hair and the thinness of the
eyelids), but in which the strong clear structure beneath the subtly moving surface results in
an individual portrait of great power.4
Very fine engraved lines, similar to those of the Agora bust, occur on a bronze bust in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York which belongs, at least in origin, to the Sorex
16 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
group.5These lines, appearingin the forehead, at the comers of the eyes and on the neck, are
somewhat more visible on the surface of the metal than on the white marble of our bust, but
they are of the same type. The New York bust was dated by Poulsen around 70 B.C.,6 but
Schweitzer considers it an Augustan adaptation, placing the original near 60 B.C.' The fact
that so many portraits assigned on the basis of their types to the late Republican Period are
not to be considered as originals makes it very difficult to base dating on surface technique. In
this respect the Greek portraits are more reliable than the Italian, there being little reason for
subsequent copies of the portraits of Romans set up in Greece, but one cannot be absolutely
sure, even in the case of our present bust, that the date of the type is the date of the piece itself.
The brushingof the hair in differentdirections on the two sides of the head occurs in portraits
of Cicero,and continues down into the Augustan period, becoming, in fact, a sort of court style
of the early Augustan age.8 It seems not to be common among the portraits which have the
short, shallowly carved needle-pointed locks of our bust, and its occurrencehere may indicate
that the Agora portrait is somewhat later than others of its group. It is, in any case, interesting
to have a portrait of this type appear in Athens, a further demonstration of the thorough inter-
penetration of Greek and Roman portrait sculpture in the first century B.C.
1
Schweitzer, pp. 79ff., figs. 99-104, 107-110. M. Bieber, History of theGreekand Roman Theater (Princeton, 1939), p. 323,
calls the Sorex of the preserved portrait, who is designated in the inscription as a player of secondary roles in comedy, a
son of rather than identical with the favorite of Sulla who was archimimus. This would lower Schweitzer's dates by twenty
to thirty years and would so lessen the apparent gap between the Roman group and its Greek offshoots.
2 Schweitzer, figs. 104, 109, 110.
though the evidence for its dating is slim at best, in the first century B.C. In all likelihood it
belonged to a large grave relief.
1Michalowski, De'los,XIII, p1s. 17-18.
1 Inv. S 1627. Pres. L. 0.24 m. Hesperia, XXII, 1953, p. 55, pl. 20c. The scale is life-size. The hand is broken
off above
the wrist; the thumb and much of the rim of the phiale are missing. The marble is Pentelic, similar in quality to that of the
head. The surface is fresh and unweathered but blackened by fire, especially on the back of the hand. The careful, precise
carving is very similar to that of the head; compare especially the division of the fingers on the hand with the parting of the
lips on the head. Similar also is the smooth surface finish which retains an occasional touch of the rasp.
2 B.M.C., Empire, I, pl. 35, 9 (A.D. 41) is perhaps the closest, since it shows the hair twisted behind the ears.
3 Maiuri, Bollettinod'arte,1930-31, pp. 11ff., figs. 5-7; Kaschnitz-Weinberg, Mitt. d. Inst., III, 1950, pl. 14,1 (front view);
Paribeni, pl. 115 (side view).
4 Poulsen, Greekand Roman Portraits in English CountryHouses, figs. 33-34 (in Tunis, Bardo Museum).
5 Delbriick, Antike Portrats,pl. 34; A.B. 6-7; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 209; Billedtavler,pl. 50, no. 614.
24 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
12. FRAGMENTARYPORTRAIT
OFAYOUNGWOMAN,ANTONIA
MINOR(?), JULIO-CLAUDIANPERIOD
Inv. S 220.FoundMay17, 1932in a marbledumpsouthof the Agorasquare. Plate 8.
Pentelicmarble.Pres. H. 0.21 m., Pres. W. 0.215 m., Pres. D. 0.145 m.
Upperfrontpartofheadonlypreserved.Thewholesurfaceseverelylbattered.
Ofthe faceonlythe innerand
outercornersof eyessurvive.Theoutlinesof thehaircanbe madeout. Thefrontpartsof the earspreserved.
The head is probably from a draped statue. On a line with the backs of the ears the carved
surface of the hair stops and is replaced by a rough joint surface similar to that on the side of
the head No. 33 below. It is not clear whether the much worn present back surface of the
fragment is break surface or roughly picked, but here, as there, it seems most likely that the
head was covered with a mantle or veil and the face and neck carved separately and inset. In
the present portrait, however, the head covering was symmetrically placed. The hair is parted
in the center and is combed back in wide waves, leaving the ears uncovered. Ten little ringlets
outline the forehead in front, and a semicircularloop of hair emerges from under the waves in
front of each ear. The ears are far apart, sloping outward at the tops.
The coiffure, the shape of the forehead and the slope of the ears are all duplicated exactly in
a charminghead of a young woman in Berlin (P1.44, a),' of which ours must have been a replica.
The only differenceis that the Berlin lady is bareheaded,so that we see the rest of the coiffure.
The hair is twisted into a small knot on the back of the neck. The head in Berlin is said to have
come from a Greek island. A portrait in Malta, tentatively identified as Antonia Minor, the
wife of Nero Drusus, shows a lady with exactly the same coiffure and with the same facial
proportions, though the work lacks the delicacy of the Berlin portrait, and the face appears
heavier and consequently less youthful.2 The shape of the head, very wide at the top and
tapering to a small chin, is that characteristic of the Julio-Claudianfamily. The coiffure with
the center part and wide crimped waves and with the hair twisted into a small knot low in the
back is intermediate between that shown in a portrait labelled Salus Augusta on a coin of the
time of Tiberius, generally taken as a portrait of Livia,3 and the coiffures of Antonia in post-
humous coin-portraitsissued under Claudius,4where the back hair hangs down in the pendant
knot that is common in Claudianfemale portraits. One of the Antonia coins, minted in Alex-
andria,5 shows the single row of small curls framing the forehead. Judging from comparison
with the coins alone, the lady of the Berlin and Malta portraits resembles Antonia more than
any other ladies of the imperial household, though the facial type differs somewhat from that
of the famous statue in the Louvre commonly identified as Antonia, the nose being not so long
as in the Louvre portrait, and the whole face consequently more compact. If the Berlin portrait
represents Antonia, it is by all odds the loveliest, though it can scarcely be the most accurate,
representation of this great lady that has come down to us. The discovery of a replica in Athens
strengthens the case for the identification.6
1 Bliimel,
R6mischeBildnisse, R 23, p. 11, pl. 16. Bltimel dates the head in the first decades of our era, but does not raise
the question of the identification.
2
Mostra Augustea della Romanitd, Catalogo,2nd Edition, Rome, pl. 23; 4th Edition, IX, 38 (not illustrated).
3 B.M.C.,
Empire, I, pl. 24, 2. A recent identification of this coin as Antonia (see above, No. 10, note 1) threatens further
to confuse the picture of the iconography of these imperial ladies. All numismatic considerations aside, the face on this coin
seems certainly more like that on the other Livia coins than that on the coins of Antonia issued under Claudius.
4 Bernoulli, R.I., II1, pl. 33, 9-12. 5 Ibid.,
6 We know that a cult of Antonia as well as one pl. 33, 12.
of her husband Drusus was established in Athens, which was apparently
the only city to render her this honor (Graindor, Athknessous Auguste, pp. 157f.). The analysis by Hanson and Johnson
(A.J.A., L, 1946, pp. 393f.) of portrait inscriptions of Antonia mentions a portrait at Mytilene, set up some time after the death
of Drusus in 9 B.C., and one near Troy, set up in the reign of Tiberius. The portrait inscriptions listed range in date from
12 B.C., when Antonia was about twenty-four years old, to after her death at the age of seventy-two. Later portraits seem
to have shown her with her youthful face, but with the coiffure brought up to date (West, I, p. 134).
CATALOGUE 25
The bust, slightly under life-size, has a roughly cut tenon below, presumably for setting into
a base. The position of this tenon, at the back instead of the front edge of the bust, is unusual,
and it is difficult to imagine what the original form of the base was meant to be. When found,
the bust was resting on a makeshift base, the lower part of an unfinishedsupport for a table or
basin. The fact that the breaks on the head are worn and that the missing pieces were not found
even though the bust was in a sealed deposit suggests that the breakage had occurred long
before the year 267. The break at the top bisects an odd, irregularlydrilledhole about 0.015 m.
in diameter, which penetrates down from the top to a depth of about 0.08 m. A bit of an iron
26 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
1 Cf. No. 17 below. This feature is perhaps commonest in Hadrianic work, but it occurs even in the Julio-Claudianperiod,
e.g. the head of a young woman (perhaps Antonia) in Berlin (P1. 44, a).
2 Pancratiast's ears seem to have been considered a respectable mark of gentlemanly interest in athletics, not only a sign
of the professional athlete. They occur not only on portraits of ephebes and kosmetai (Graindor, Cosm1tes, no. 4, p. 304,
fig. 11 and no. 21, p. 353, pl. 21) but even on the portrait of Moiragenes (No. 25 below), a mature Athenian official without
even an educational connection with athletics. No doubt the thickened ear was accorded the same respect as is shown today
for "an old foot-ball injury."
15. PORTRAIT HEAD OF A MAN (FROM A RELIEF), FLAVIAN PERIOD Plate 11.
Inv. S 680.FoundMarch19, 1986in looseearthof the fourthcenturyafterChristor later,in frontof the
northendof the Stoaof Attalos(P 8).
Pentelicmarble.H. of fragment0.15m.
Headbrokenofffromneckjustbelowthe chin.Noneof background orof lineof intersection
of background
withreliefpreserved.
Breakrunsoutsideoutercornerof righteyeanddownthroughrightcheek.Chinchipped
away;nosebrokenoff;lipsmostlybrokenaway.Earbrokenoff;eyebrowsandhairlinebattered.
The head is in three-quartersfront view, facing to the properright; the relief is low enough to
requirea distortion of the face when seen from in front. The subject is clean-shaven and wears
his hair cut moderately short, with a straight horizontal line across the forehead and with
pointed locks in front of the ears. The hair is carved with the chisel in small flame-shapedlocks.
The face is strongly modelled, with heavily marked furrows and salient eyebrows and eyelids.
It represents a middle-aged man with a serious expression. The look of anxiety which the head
has in its present state may be partly caused by the damage it has suffered. The hair style of the
piece could be either Julio-Claudianor Flavian, but the modelling of the face and especially the
treatment of the eyes favor a Flavian date.'
1 Cf. Nos. 18 and 19 below.
CATALOGUE 27
16. FRAGMENTARY PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN, FLAVIAN PERIOD Plate 11.
Inv. S 359. Found May 9, 1933 in a moderncellar wall near the southwest cornerof the ancient Agora
square(J 11).
Pentelicmarble.Pres. H. 0.28 m., Pres. W. 0.205m., H. chin to crown(not includingthe erectionof hair in
front)0.24m.
Headbrokenofffromneckjust underchin.Thewholebackof headandneckbrokenoff,the breakrunning
throughboth ears.Mostof the surfaceof the frontmassof hairbrokenoff;the facebatteredbeyondrec-
ognition.
The rough-picked finish of the concave hair surface behind the high front mass of curls
suggests that the head may be broken from a relief.' The face was round, nay moon-shaped.
The eyes and the area around them seem to have been quite flatly modelled. The surface that
is preserved on the forehead and under the chin shows that the flesh was carefully smoothed,
probably polished. Parts of two rows of snail-shell curls are still visible, a drill-holein the center
of each. They extend down in front of the ears on each side. The lady seems to be wearing the
typical hairdress of the time of Domitian. Curlsof similar size and regularity and with the same
monotonous drilled centers appear on a portrait in the Capitoline called Domitia.2 Since the
back part of our head is missing, however, we cannot date it precisely. The sponge-like curl-
dressing of the front hair continued in use through the Trajanic period, and only the styling of
the back hair permits a distinction.3
1 A Flavian female portrait from Chersonesosin Crete (Marinatos,Arch. Anz., 1935, col. 256, figs. 7-8) shows, however,
an unfinished back although it is carved in the round.
2 Hekler, Bildniskunst,
pl. 239b; Bernoulli, R.I., II, pl. 20, p. 64.
3 Poulsen, Greekand Roman Portraits in
English CountryHouses, no. 53, pp. 71 f., and figs. 43-44.
tinuing downward to meet the groove that defines the lower edge of the eye socket. The lines
of the lower part of the face are essentially the same as in the precedingportrait except that the
mouth is now clamped shut and the groove separating the chin from the lower lip has become
a definite line forming a low gable.' At the right end of this groove is a drill-holewhere evidently
the sculptor drilled a little too deep in removing the marble in the earlier stages of the work.
The outer edges of the lips are barely distinguishable; all the emphasis is on the line of closing.2
In the new hard treatment of the surface, grooves and folds tend to become offsets or inter-
sections of planes. Protuberances are smoothly rounded; any swelling of the flesh is taut and
hard. The ears, completely preserved in the present portrait, are round and thick. The overall
effect is that of work in some stone harder than marble. One is reminded of Egyptian portraits
in hard, colored stone.
The form of the bust could be late Flavian or early Trajanic,3but the style belongs wholly to
the time of Trajan. For the surface a good parallel exists in the colossal portrait head of Trajan
found in the theater at Ostia, which is thought to date actually from the very beginning of
Hadrian's reign.4The style of the face and the spirit of the portrait as a whole are close to those
of a bust in Naples, which portrays an elderly Roman who wears his hair in the characteristic
Trajanic mode.5 The eyes of the Naples portrait are of the same heavy-lidded type as those of
our portrait, with the upper lids overlappingthe lower at the outer corners.The arrangementof
the drapery is also similar, though the Naples bust is slightly more developed than ours in its
outline.
In view of the above parallels a date in the latter part of Trajan's reign seems most probable
for our bust, in spite of the fact that the bust form could be a bit earlier. The portrait of the
kosmetes Heliodoros, dated on epigraphicalgrounds between ca. 100 and 110/1,6 seems closer
to the style of the Flavian period, and so should be earlier than the Agora bust, which exem-
plifies the fully developed Trajanic style. The notable achievement of the Trajanic age in
portraitureis the production of an effect of strong realism through rigidly controlled composi-
tional and technical means. The masterly technique of the Agora bust and its convincing
characterization of its subject show that the Athenian portraitists of this period were not far
behind their Roman contemporariesin ability.
1 This line becomes even more marked in the portrait of Moiragenes, below, No. 25, which must belong to the time of
Hadrian.
2 This is true of a number of
Trajanic portraits, e. g. Hekler, Bildniskunst, pls. 233, 234 b, 240 b.
3 Cf. Thompson, Hesperia, XVII, 1948, p. 178; Hekler, Jahreshefte,XXI-XXII, 1922-24, p. 188, type III.
4 W. H. Gross, Bildnisse Traians, no. 74, pls. 33-35; Paribeni, pl. 206. Gross, op. cit., p. 114, suggests that, since the
arrangement of the hair in the Ostia portrait recurs only in the Hadrianic Mesopotamia relief on the arch at Beneventum,
the type must be that of the Divus Traianus, a type which would presumably have been created immediately after Trajan's
consecration.
5 Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 233; A.B. 741.
6 Graindor,Cosm&tes,no. 2, pp. 292ff., fig. 10; I.G., II, 2021. Graindor'sterminuspost quemof 98/99, based on the assump-
tion that this inscription must be later than I.G., 112, 2017 (archonship of Pantainos), has been demolished by Notopoulos's
dating of Pantainos to 115/6 (Hesperia, XVIII, 1949, p. 26), but the mention of the paidotribesDemetrios in the present
inscription prevents a date much before 100, since Demetrios was still active in 126/7 (I.G., II2, 3733).
21. HEAD OF A YOUNG MAN (FROMA GRAVE RELIEF), PERIOD OF TRAJAN(?) Plate 16.
Inv. S 880. Found April 10, 1937 in a late Byzantine deposit north of the Templeof Ares (K 7).
Pentelic marble. H. 0.115 m., W. 0.08 m., D. of relief ca. 0.06 m., H. chin to crown 0.095 m.
Headbrokenoff at baseof neck.Background brokenawayaroundheadleavingonlya bit of background
planevisibleonrightsideofneck.Theoriginalroughlypickedbacksurfaceof slabvisibleonbackoffragment;
the slab only 0.03 m. thick at this point. Mostof nose chippedoff; lowerlip and chin somewhatdamaged.
The head faces straight out, emerging from the backgroundjust a little way behind the ears.
The sides of the head and neck intersect the background plane perpendicularly instead of
CATALOGUE 883
curving in behind. This makes the neck look unusually thick. The top of the head is wide and
domed, the face oval, tapering to a small pointed chin. The hairline over the forehead is a
smooth oval ending in a point in front of each ear. The hair is representedas all combed forward
from the crown of the head, the locks being indicated by rows of parallel strokes. The ears are
enormous,flaringoutward as they so often do in front-facingheads on grave reliefs of the Roman
period.
The modelling of the face, though sketchy, is careful and competent. Details like the con-
cavity of the forehead above the eyebrow ridges, the hollows below the eyes and the area of
soft flesh around the mouth are duly noted. The rasp has been used to round and soften the
contours, and in places the marks of the rasp in turn have been partially smoothed away.
The hair combed forward and cut in a smooth arch across the forehead suggests a date early
in the second century after Christ. Neither the portrait nor the person it represents is in any
way distinguished, but it again illustrates the power of the ordinary Athenian sculptor working
in marble to produce an effect of warmth and life even with the most modest means.
22. PORTRAITOF A WOMAN (FROMA GRAVE RELIEF), PERIOD OF TRAJAN (?) Plate16.
Inv. S 584.FoundMay21, 1935in a moderndepositonthe eastsideof the Agora(P 13).
Pentelicmarble.H. 0.15m.
Headbrokenofffrombodyat neckandfrombackground all around.Nosebrokenoff.
The head is meant to be seen in three-quartersfront view, facing left. The thick hair is parted
in the center and drawn back in soft waves leaving the ears uncovered. A veil or mantle covers
the top and back of the head, passing behind the ears. The face is a full oval, with almond eyes
and a soft, small mouth. The heavy hair is carved with the chisel into broad strands. The ear is
only a small shell without interior detail. The surface of the face has been dressed down with the
rasp on the side that is meant to be seen; on the side that is away from the spectator the irregu-
larities left by the chisel remain.
The coiffure affords no very good evidence for the dating. This manner of wearing the front
hair might be found at almost any time during the first century after Christ or in the early part
of the second. The technique of the piece, however, is so close to that of the preceding that a
similar date seems likely. Points to be comparedare the quality of the rasp-dressedsurface, the
soft modelling of the mouth, and, above all, the shape of the eyes, which narrow to a very fine
point at the outer corners.
Like the preceding, this head has no qualities of distinction that merit special comment. A
certain simple charm inherent in the piece as a whole speaks for itself.
Across the top of the shaft below the bust runs the inscription:
MotpaycvrisApo-
!K
IpoKXiouS Koh'rIs
' lrrnrro-
TrrcbvuwloS
9 Wegner, p. 13, pl. 46. Wegner uses the Agora portrait as a sample of Greekstyle, but without questioning the identification
as Septimius Severus.
10 The two portraits of Lucius Verus in the National Museum in Athens shown in Wegner, pl. 45 are of the standard type,
though clearly Greek in workmanship. West, II, p. 143, no. 2, identifies the Terme portrait as Aelius Verus. It is difficult at
present to identify portraits of Aelius Verus with certainty, and it is not altogether impossible that he is represented in our
Agora head.
11 Poulsen, KunstmuseetsAarskrift, 1929-31, p. 43, figs. 47-49.
12 Cf.
Bernoulli, R.I., II, p. 4.
32. PORTRAIT HEAD OF A WOMAN (FROM A RELIEF), ANTONINE PERIOD Plate 20.
Inv. S 258.Foundin 1933in the demolition
of a modernhousein thenorthwestpartof the excavationarea
(J 7).
Pentelicmarble.H. of fragment0.16 m., D. of reliefca. 0.09 m.
Headbrokenoff frombody at neck.Background of reliefbrokenawayall around.Topof headcut or
brokenaway,slantingdiagonallyback.Topof earandallof hairchippedawayonrightsideof head.Faceand
haironleft sidebatteredandconsiderably
weathered.
The head, which faced toward the proper right in three-quarters front view, portrays a
middle-aged woman. Her hair is parted in the center and combed back to the sides in waves,
leaving most of the ear uncovered. A braid is wound aroundthe top of the head. It is represented
as a torus engraved with a zigzag pattern, a convention common in coin portraits. Between the
braid and the waves is a narrow flat strip that may be either a fillet or, more probably, an
additional twist of hair wound round the head.' The face seems to have been well modelled.
Prominent cheekbones and jawbones and a small pointed chin make its outline polygonal rather
than oval. The mature age of the subject is suggested by the rather deep hollows under the
eyes, the diagonal grooves from the nose down, and the heavy flesh along the jawline. The
pupils of the eyes are represented by tiny drilled holes (there are two, one above the other, in
the right eye) and the outline of the iris is engraved.
The coiffure is that of Faustina the Elder, and the style of the portrait would fit a date in
the early Antonine period. Both in technique and in characterizationthis seems to have been
a thoroughly competent bit of work.
1 Cf. the female head on the Alcestis sarcophagusin the Vatican (dated 161-170), Arch. Anz., 1938, col. 319, fig. 26 (left).
44 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
33. PORTRAIT OF FAUSTINA THE YOUNGER (A.D. 145-175) Plate 21.
FoundApril6, 1933builtinto a Byzantinewalloverthe areaof the northporchof the Library
Inv. S 88336.
of Pantainos(Q13).
Pentelic marble.H. 0.245 m., W. 0.195m., Pres. D. 0.155 m., H. chin to crown0.245 m.
Headbrokenoffjust belowchin;onlya smalltriangleof necksurfaceremainson left side,noneon right.
Nosebrokenoff.Allprojectingsurfacesbattered:chin,lips,cheeks,eyebrows,crestsof wavesin hair.
The way in which the head is cut and weathered suggests that the face and neck were carved
in a separate piece and attached by means of a dowel in the back to a draped statue with the
mantle pulled over the head. The back part of the head is missing; the cut surface, roughly
hacked with the pointed chisel, begins at a little distance forward from the crown of the head
and slopes back behind the ears. In this surface, 0.03 m. from the top edge, is a slot 0.03 m. long
and 0.01 m. wide going down into the marble for a depth of 0.05 m. The surface of the hair is
unfinished over a large area on the right side, and this area is weathered in the manner of a
joint surface onto which water has seeped and stood. A series of first century B.C. portrait
statues found at Magnesia on the Maeandershows this technique of dowelling in the piece in
which the face and neck is cut, though there the dowel-holesare square and larger than that in
our piece.' It was more usual in Roman times to cut the head and the upper part of the mantle
in one piece.
The pupils of the eyes are drilled, shallow and roughly circular in shape. The outline of the
iris is engraved. The hair is combed back from a center part in loose waves that frame the face.
The wavy strands are chisel-cut, intermediate between fine and coarse. The drill is used only
for the center points of two small spiral curls that hang down one on each side in front of the
ears. The carving of the face is flat and shallow throughout. The flesh surface is carefully
smoothed and was no doubt originally polished. The workmanship,though uninspired, is very
careful. A fine piece of pure white marble was used.
This life-sized head of a young woman with a smooth round face and a vacuous expression is
without depth of characterization, and most of its surface beauty has been battered away. It
would have little interest, in its present state, were it not that it reproducesin all its essential
features an equally characterlessportrait from the Nymphaion of Herodes Atticus in Olympia
(P1. 44, b) which is the only epigraphically authenticated sculptured portrait of Faustina the
Younger.2
The feature common to the two heads that first catches the attention is the little spiral lock
that hangs down in front of each ear, curling back toward the back of the head. A closer look
reveals that the outline of the wide waves swept away from a central part is likewise the same. So
too is the shape of the smooth, roundface with its shallow modelling. The eyebrowsproject very
little. The eyes are flatly carved with thin lids, the pupils not too deeply drilled, the elliptical
outline of the iris engraved with a fine line. The mouth is short and straight, with full lips
slightly parted. The chin, now damaged on the Agora head, was evidently small and round as
it is on the Olympia one.
The coiffure of the Agora head cannot be compared in all details to that of the Olympia
Faustina, since the back of the head was covered. The latter wears a cone-shaped coil of braids
on top of the head, a common coiffure of her mother, the elder Faustina, but one that never
appears on coins of Faustina the Younger.3 The weathered joint surface on the right side of
our head implies that the mantle covered the hair unsymmetrically, coming farther forward on
the right side than on the left. Beyond this we know nothing definite about the type of statue
CATALOGUE 45
to which our portrait belonged. Doubtless it was one of the familiar draped types based on
Hellenistic originals that were used over and over for female portraits in the Roman period.4
Aside from the rough trimming of the joint surface, the technique of the Agora head is of
relatively high quality. The chiselled lines are sharper and more delicate, the surface more
carefully smoothed, than in the Olympia head. The divergency of the type from all the coin
types and from all the properlysculpturaltypes that have been identified by means of the coins
makes it probable that this is a local Greek creation based on slight evidence as to the actual
appearance of the lady herself. The present replica is of interest as showing that the Olympia
Faustina the Younger was not an &1rmag •y6Esvov but a reproduction of a current Greek type.
1
Watzinger, Magnesia am Maeander, p. 199, figs. 198-200.
2
Olympia, III, p1s. 68, 1 and 69, 5. Kunze and Schleif, OlympischeForschungen,I, pl. 25 (left) and pl. 26 (right).
3 Cf. Wegner, pp. 52, 216.
4 The Olympia Faustina uses the type of the Petite Herculanaise, a type favored for girls. Possibly the Agora statue was
in the type of the GrandeHerculanaise, a somewhat later statue showing Faustina in the role of matron. I owe this suggestion
to Margarete Bieber.
The hair is parted in the center, with loose waves framing the face. They must have covered
all but the lobes of the ears. The strands are carved with the chisel, coarsely drawn, but not
monotonously equal and parallel. The hairs of the eyebrows seem to have been engraved, with
rather coarse lines. The shape of the pupils of the eyes is no longer discernible, but they must
have been drilled. Traces show that the outline of the iris was sharply engraved. The modelling
is flat. The skin is carefully smoothed and may have been polished, though the surface is now
weathered.
This much-damaged portrait of a woman is over life-size, being comparable in scale to the
male portrait, No. 17 above. In its wretched state of preservation the head does not admit of
positive identification or even of positive dating. Certain similarities, however, suggest a
relation to the preceding, No. 33: the smooth, round face, the flat modelling, the sloping flesh
beneath the chin. Though the waves framing the face dip lower over the forehead and in front
of the ears, their outline is similar. The coiffureas a whole, however, cannot have been the same.
That of the present head was evidently a simple, all-over waved arrangement, probably with
a knot in back, but without any special treatment on top. The surface of the hair is carved
with a coarse vitality completely lacking in the other head. A peculiarity to be noted is that
the shorter strands end in points, one on the left side in the first wave, the other on the right
side in the second wave.
Incomplete though it is, the coiffure of our head seems datable to the time of Faustina the
Younger or her immediate successors. Such loose, natural waves dipping low over the forehead
are not common later, when the tendency is to narrower,stiffer waves such as those exemplified
in the wig-like coiffures of Julia Domna.' Presumably the present head with its simple all-over
46 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
waved coiffurewould not be earlier than A.D. 153-4, when this style is first shown on the coins
of Faustina the Younger.2 It is not impossible that the portrait represents Faustina herself.
That would explain the large scale and the rather coarse, generalized treatment, frequent in
provincial portraits of rulers, less so in those of private persons. Nothing in the shape of the face
or the features as they are preserved would contradict such an assumption, but only the wide
upper eyelids are clear enough to count positively in favor of it.
1
Cf. portraits of Julia Domna in the Terme, Paribeni, pl. 290, and in Houghton Hall, Poulsen, Greekand Roman Portraits
in English Country Houses, no. 97, p. 102. Typical examples of third-century waves may be seen in Hekler, Bildniskultst,
pls. 300-304.
2B.M.C., Empire, IV, p. xliv, issue (4), pl. 23, 13-15. For this style see also Wegner, p. 50, pl. 68, k and o.
1
Shear, A.J.A., XXXIX, 1935, p. 181.
2
Cf. Graindor, Cosmntes,no. 13, p. 334, fig. 18 and no. 14, p. 337, fig. 19, both dated by Graindorto the early years of the
hird century.
8 The fine portrait of Caracallain Berlin, Bltimel, R6mischeBildnisse, R 96, pls. 59-60, has this strongly modelled forehead
tand the plastically projecting eyebrows. The shape of the thin mustache in this portrait is also to be compared to that of
our head. A portrait of Caracallain Corinth, Askew, A.J.A., XXXV, 1931, pp. 442-7, besides being a work of inferior quality,
seems to belong to an earlier type. The hair is longer and contains a great deal of drill work. The face is highly polished and
shows very little modelling or expression. This bearded, but open-faced type of Caracallaoccurs only on coins dated between
A.D. 209 and 213 (B.M.C., Empire, V, pl. 53, 5-7, dated in 209, [these are the first coins to show the beard]; pl. 53, 18-20,
pl. 58, 5-6, A.D. 210). The scowling type begins on coins dated between A. D. 210 and 213 (ibid., pl. 55, 9-14; pl. 61, 1-2).
4 Cf. L'Orange, Studien, p. 11, fig. 12. Also see below, No. 44. A portrait of a kosmetes in the National Museum in Athens,
Graindor, Cosmntes,no. 12, p. 332, fig. 17, is said by Graindorto have the pupil in the form of a simple cup, but this is not
strictly true. Rather, as in the present case, the dividing ridge has been almost obliterated. Graindor dates the kosmetes to
the reign of Septimius Severus.
5 See below, Nos. 44, 45 and 46. Cf. L'Orange, op. cit., p. 12.
8 Compareportraits of Commodus, Wegner, pls. 48-56, and Crispina, ibid., pl. 57.
7
Cf. above, No. 28.
CATALOGUE 51
38. PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN, A.D. 215-225 Plate 25.
Inv. S 954.FoundJune7, 1937in a welldugthroughthe floorof a cisternto the westof the Tholos(G11).
Pentelic marble.H. 0.32 m., W. 0.22 m., H. chin to crown0.245 m.
Headbrokenoffat baseof neck.Tipof nosemissing.Numerous
blackspeckson left sideof faceandhair.
Surfacein goodcondition.
This is a portrait of a young man wearinga light mustache and with youthful beardon the sides
of his cheeks. His thick, rather curly hair falls low over the forehead in front and low down on
the neck in back. On the sides it half covers the ears, falling in short, tumbled locks on the left
side, but in long corkscrew curls on the right side. The drill is used in places to separate the
locks. The beard on the cheeks too is unsymmetrically treated. On the right side are a few plastic
curls rising above the generallevel, which is renderedin the usual third centuryway by little cur-
ved strokes in a slightly raised rough surface, but there are no such plastic curls on the left side.
The eyebrows are drawn with heavy incised strokes. The eyes are rather flat, with narrowupper
lids and thin lower lids that dip near the outer corners.The pupils arevery shallow,of a cardioid
shape that has nearly merged into a simple cup.' The irises are engraved. Irises and pupils are
placed in such a way that the young man appears slightly cross-eyed. The surface is smoothed
but not polished; here and there traces of imperfectly obliterated rasp marks are visible.
This portrait is reminiscentin a generalway of the portraits of Elagabalus. The thin mustache
and the slightly curly down on the cheeks recall the well-known head in the Capitoline.2The
heavy thatch of hair on the head of our young man is longer and shaggier than that worn by
the young Emperor. We may note, however, a similar disposition of locks over the forehead,
including the change of direction above the center of the right eyebrow. The extra length may
be a matter of local fashion, analogous to that observable among Athenian youth today.
The curious way in which the two halves of the face slope backward from a central ridge
formedby the nose, the projecting upper lip and the chin is reminiscent of such later portraits as
No. 44 below and the related ephebe head in the Athens National Museum (P1. 46, b).3 One
other Athenian portrait shows definite affinities with our head; it is probably to be dated in the
same period. This is Athens National Museum no. 393, the queerest of the kosmetai.4He, like
our young man, looks as though more of his vital energies had gone into the growth of his hair
than into the development of what was underneath it. The hard, linear chisel-work on the
surface of the locks of hair is very similar in the two heads (the way the front hair of the kos-
metes rises in a sort of crest above the forehead finds an analogy in the Agora herm portrait,
No. 39 below). Also to be compared with those of our young man are the cheeks, the eyebrows
drawn with heavy incisions, and the flat eyes with a double curve to the lower lids. The in-
flated upper lids of the kosmetes are no doubt an individual peculiarity, for they find parallels
only among Antonine portraits.
There is no positive clue to the identity of the Agora youth, but his resemblance to types
that one meets on the streets of Athens today makes it easy to believe that he was a native
Athenian. The portrait is individual enough to compel interest in spite of the fact that the
workmanshipis not of the highest quality. One thinks of it first as a personality and only second
as a piece of sculpture.
1 Cf. No. 37 above.
2
Delbriick, Antike Portrats, pl. 51; Paribeni, pl. 299; L'Orange, SymbolaeOsloenses,XX, 1940, p. 155, fig. 2. In the head
in Oslo, ibid., figs. 1, 3, 4, the beard is less curly.
3 Graindor,Cosmates,no. 22, 354,
p. fig. 26; L'Orange, Studien, figs. 20, 22.
4 Graindor, Cosm~tes,no. 27, p. 363, fig. 28; A.B. 389. Noting the similarity of the hair and beard of the kosmetes to that
in the portraits of Antisthenes, Graindor suggests that the kosmetes was a Cynic.
4*
52 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
39. HERM PORTRAITOF A MAN, ca. A.D. 215-225 Plate 26.
Inv. S 887.FoundJune23 and24, 1933in a late Romandepositbreakingthe floorof the largeRoman
buildingnorthof the Templeof Ares(K 7).
Pentelicmarble.H. 0.54m., H. chinto crown0.27m., W. of head0.235m., W. of hermshaftca. 0.36 m.,
D. 0.245 m.
Mendedfromfivepieces.Partof the hermshaftpreserved in backandonleft side.Cloakpreserved in back
and overleft shoulder.End of nose and edgeof left ear brokenoff. Brokensurfaceof nose, a partof left
eyebrow,edgesof lips andprojectingpointsof chinandforelockwornas if the headhadlainin the ground
with thesepartsup andhadbeenwalkedon. Surfacewell-preserved in general;weatheredlight tan, with
hereandthere.
smallpatchesof incrustation
Publishedby T. L. Shear,Hesperia,IV, 1985,p. 420,fig.41; A.J.A., XXXVII,1933,p. 548,fig.6B; Art
andArchaeology, XXXIV,1933,p. 288.
This is the upper part of a portrait herm, showing a man of middle age or perhaps a little
younger. The hair is somewhat curly and rather long, with unruly ends coming forward and
framing the face. It is carved principally with the chisel, showing very little drill-work. The
beard and mustache are close-cropped. The beard does not extend down onto the neck or up
onto the lower lip except for a tuft in the center. It is rendered by little curved incisions into
a roughened surface. The pupils of the eyes are hollowed in a cardioid form. The irises are
engraved. The final dressing of the flesh surfaces was done with the rasp.
The subject wears a himation which passes over the left shoulder and around the back of the
neck, apparently leaving the right shoulder free. His head is turned a little toward the right
and tilted slightly upward, in a pose suggestive of energetic alertness. This agrees well with
the impression made by the features themselves, the square jaw, the firm mouth and the deep-
set eyes which gaze intently in the direction in which the head is turned. There is an asymmetry
in the modelling of the two sides of the face which seems to be caused by this turn of the head.
The whole right side of the face, including the eye, is made wider and flatter than the left side.
The effect of this inequality is to make the two sides of the face appear more equal by counter-
acting the natural foreshortening of the part of the face turned away from the spectator. The
herm form and the himation over the left shouldersuggested to the first publisherof the portrait
that this might be one of the portraits of the kosmetai, for many of them had this form. Nothing
in the style or workmanshipor the appearance of the individual himself contradicts this hypo-
thesis, but the herm form was used also for portraits of other types of persons,' and the proven-
ience of the present head is somewhat unlikely for a kosmetes.2
The cut of the beard and mustache as well as the manner of renderingthem by little curved
incisions is similar to that of No. 37, which we dated in the reign of Caracalla.Similar incision
is used also for the eyebrows. The general arrangement of the hair resembles that of No. 37,
though the locks are longer here and not so curly. At first glance the shaggy locks over the
forehead with the chisel-drawn lines on their surfaces recall portraits of Gallienus, but the
beard here does not grow onto the throat, and the shape of the hair mass, which for all its
luxuriance does not extend very far down on the back of the neck, is much closer to the An-
tonine mode than to that of the mid third century. In our portrait the locks on the top and
the back of the head, though they are not finished, are all plastically conceived as separate
units. This would hardly be possible after the Antonine tradition had been broken once and
for all by the third century substitution of lines for modelling.
On the other hand, our head cannot be so early as No. 37. Not only has the drill here been
abandoned almost entirely for modelling or coloring the hair, but the face itself is more ad-
CATALOGUE 53
vanced in the purely linear emphasis of the features. L'Orange has characterized the Late
Severan style as one in which the surfaces of the face melt into one another without definition
or boundaries.3Our head shows hints of this in the smooth sweeping surface between the nose
and the inner corners of the eyes and in the flat, ribbon-like upper eyelids which remain wide
in spite of the fact that the eyes are represented wide open.4 The rasped finish of the surface
looks like a forerunnerof the later Athenian practice. In Nos. 44 and 45 below, dated around
the middle of the century, a heavy rasp is used and the strokes tend to run all in the same
direction, emphasizing the sweeping continuity of the surfaces. Here the rasp is finer and the
strokes cross one another. The popularity of a rasp-finishedsurface in portraits seems to have
begun in Athens in the first quarter of the third century, if Graindoris correct in his dating
of a kosmetes which has it.5 The manner in which the eyebrows are undercut to emphasize the
deep-set eyes is likewise paralleled in a portrait of a kosmetes, dated by Graindor as early as
the time of Septimius Severus.6 The active, alive appearance of our portrait is in contrast to
the apathetic look of many Late Severan portraits, and is probably another argument for
placing it near the period of Caracalla.As a portraitit is entirely successful,alive, individual, and
almost attractive, as the person himself must have been. Technically it hits a very fair mean,
having all the vividness of the more "impressionistic"portraits of kosmetai without any of the
glaring faults and negligences that they too often betray.
1 Cf. the herm portrait of Moiragenes, No. 25 above.
2
Most of the portraits of kosmetai were found in the "Valerian Wall" east of the Agora, whereas the present head was
found in a late Roman deposit in the northwest part of the Agora.
3
L'Orange, Studien, p. 1.
SThe same contradiction appears in a much exaggerated form in No. 44 below.
5 Graindor, Cosmetes,no. 14, pp. 337f., fig. 19. Graindor compares this with portraits of the period of Septimius Severus
and Caracalla.Probably a date early in the reign of Caracallawould be correct for this portrait which still makes extravagant
use of the drill for hair and beard but has the beard cut rather short. The rasped finish occurs in the second century in large
coarse sculpture used for the adornment of buildings, e.g. the "captives" from the Fagade of the ColossalFigures at Corinth,
Richardson, A.J.A., VI, 1902, pl. 2 (the rasping is not visible in the photographs in Johnson, Corinth,IX, pp. 101ff.), and the
giants from the Odeion in Athens, Thompson, Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pls. 67 d, 70 a. The early Antonine portraits from the
Nymphaion of Herodes Atticus at Olympia show a finer rasped surface (cf. Wegner, pl. 39) as does a portrait of Lucius
Verus (?) in the Athens National Museum, no. 1961.
6
Graindor, Cosmdtes,no. 12, p. 332, fig. 17.
41. PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE BOY, SECOND QUARTER OF THIRD CENTURY Plate 28.
Inv. S 1307.FoundSeptember17, 1947in destructiondebrisbelowthe hypocaustroomof a Romanbath
at thewestfootof theAreopagus
(C18),togetherwithpotterypre-datingthe Herulian
destruction
of A.D.267.
Pentelic marble.H. 0.25 m., W. 0.17 m., H. chin to crown(minuswreath)0.19 m.
Headbrokenoffat baseof neck.Nosebrokenoff.Eyebrows,eyes,lipsandchinchipped.Surfaceon entire
frontpartof headand neckgranularanderoded,perhapsas the resultof burning.Surfaceon backbetter
preserved.
Publishedby H. A. Thompson,
Hesperia,XVII,1948,p. 179,pl. 58.
This life-sized portrait shows a little boy wearing on his head a wreath of small, formal leaves
stiffly ranged in pairs. His hair is cut short all over except for a single wavy lock about 11 cm.
long which falls from the crown down the back of his head. The short hair is renderedby little
curved incisions. The pupils of the eyes are drilled, but their shape is no longer discernible. The
flesh surfaces seem to have been smoothed in front, though rasp marks remain on the back of
the neck.
The renderingof the hair by little curved incisions suggests that our head is not to be dated
earlier than the second quarter of the third century. The smoothly rounded outlines of the face
and its relaxed expression, on the other hand, suggest that it is no later than the middle of the
century. The overshadowingeyebrows and heavy upper lids shown by a little boy's head from
the Agora which we date in the time of Gallienus' are lacking here. With the surface damaged
as it is, it is hard to tell just where the head belongs within the quarter-century to which we
have assigned it, but the hair line, in so far as it is visible, is like that of Alexander Severus,2
and in spirit the head seems closer to the portraits of the Late Severan period than to the
tenser faces of the forties.3
The outlines of the round, childish face are pleasing, and this was originally no doubt a very
attractive portrait, but the damage to the surface prevents us from evaluating its artistic merit
too closely. It is the curious coiffure,together with the wreath, that gives this head its particular
interest. The scalp-lock apparently illustrates the ancient practice of growing a special lock for
dedication to some river or divinity.4 Pollux says that such locks were worn either on the side
or in back or over the forehead.5 Of two similar portraits of little boys found at Eleusis, one
wears a lock on the right side,6 the other has just had his lock cut off, and the stubble that has
been left where it was cut off shows its position, over the forehead.' These Eleusinian children,
which are linked with the Agora portrait by their age and the locks and the wreaths which they
also wear, have been identified by Kourouniotes as boys initiated from childhood into the
CATALOGUE 55
mysteries:,raiCSES ,a-rias
&cp' .iUi SVTEs, a class the existence of which is attested by a number
of inscriptions.8The Agora has produced three possible examples. Besides the one under dis-
cussion there is one other with the wreath and with a lock on the back of his head (No. 42) and
one wearing a wreath but with the back of his head broken off so that one cannot be sure
whether or not he had the lock also (No. 46). It is not clear why the portraits of these children
were found in and near the Agora. Perhaps the self-glorificationof the noble families to which
they belonged extended to setting up in Athens itself duplicates of the portraits that were set
up in Eleusis or possibly these are left-overs from the sculptors' workshopswhich were located
in the vicinity.
1 Below, No. 46.
2
I.e., the forehead hair above the right eye is brushed toward the right and down to join the side hair. Cf. the portrait of
Alexander Severus in the Vatican, L'Orange, Studien, fig. 1, and the youthful portraits (often misnamed Philip the Younger)
discussed ibid., pp. 94f.
3 A portrait bust of a little boy in the Conservatori, Stuart Jones, Catalogue,II, pl. 84, Mon. are. 32, shows the extent to
which even a child's face may be affected by the tense, "realistic" style of the forties. This little boy has a long "Horus lock"
over his right ear.
4 H. A. Thompson, Hesperia, XVII, 1948, p. 179.
5 "E-rppEpov i 9Wayiou
6 'rIV K K6lpnv KaTr6rtIV~i rrip T-6 pi-rcorov 1 ESOTK= cVOb1vo~E ,o oXp6~ i oKi67Muv
aoelpd&rplX v. (B 30)"x "rroTrapoTS 'o
6
AE-rfov, VIII, 1923, p. 155, fig. 1.
7
Ibid., p. 160, fig. 4.
8 Ibid., p. 161. Portraits of Roman children with locks on the right side of the head, the so-called "Horus locks", are not
infrequent, especially in the third century (typical examples in the Conservatori,see above, note 3, and in the British Museum,
Smith, Catalogue,III, p. 172, no. 1935, pl. 6). The fact that our Athenian examples of the lock likewise belong to the third
century suggests some connection between the Roman and Greek practices. The identification of Isis with Demeter was a
common one, and it is not impossible that something originally connected with Horus should have been adopted into the
Eleusinian practice.
42. PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE BOY, SECOND QUARTER OF THIRD CENTURY Plate 27.
2, 1933builtinto a modernhousenearthe Tholos(G12).
Inv. S 403.FoundNovember
Pentelic marble.H. 0.23 m., W. 0.185 m., H. chin to crown0.21 m.
Headbrokenoff at neck.A hole(dowelhole?) 0.014m. deepand0.009m. in diameteron the underside.
Left sideof face,mostof noseandwholemouthandchinsplitoff.A largechipmissingfromtop of headin
front,so that hairlineovercenterof foreheadis not preserved.Earsbrokenoff.Wreathchipped;its surface
wornaway except for a bit in back on right side. Scalplock also chippedand worn.
This is the portrait of an even younger child than the one representedin No. 41 above. He
wears a wreath of small leaves ranged in parallel sets of three, and he has a long scalp-lock on
the back of the head.' The hair is short, though not so short as in No. 41 above. The strokes that
indicate the locks are about 11 cm. long and are often S-shaped or placed so that the movement
from one to the other is S-shaped. The hairline over the forehead may have been oval or it may
have been like that of Alexander Severus.2There are the same pointed locks in front of the ears
that we have in No. 41 above and in No. 46 below. Behind the ears the back hair is brushed
forward on either side and the parting is concealed by the scalp-lock, which is long and flowing,
coming down over the wreath and swept toward the right side of the head.
The forehead is smooth and flat, and the eyebrows do not overhang the eyes. The eyes are
flat, with thin eyelids crisply cut. The cardioid pupil is large and unusually deep. The outline
of the iris is engraved. The cheeks are very smooth and round. The skin surface is smoothed,
though rasp marks remain on the neck and under the chin.
This head looks very much as though it were a cruder product of the same workshopwhich
produced one of the kosmetai.3Most striking is the similarity in the carving of the flat eyes with
56 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
their thin, narrowlids, so sharply outlined, their elliptical iris lines and the flattened cyma recta
profile of the part between the eyebrow and the eye. Also similar are the concave temples, the
smooth flesh and the fluid renderingof the hair (delicately executed in the case of the kosmetes,
more coarsely in the boy's head). The kosmetes has hitherto been dated in the reign of Gallienus,
but a date in the time of Alexander Severus or soon after seems more likely.4 A similar date
would be appropriatefor our portrait.
1 For the significance of the wreath and lock see above under No. 41.
2 See above, No. 41, note 2.
8 L'Orange, Studien, p. 13, cat. no. 10, figs. 24, 28; Graindor, Cosmetes,no. 25, p. 360, pl. 23; Rodenwaldt, Jahrb., XLV,
1930, p. 135, fig. 14.
4 A portrait of Alexander Severus in Cairo, Graindor, Bustes et statues-portraitsd'Agypte romaine, no. 19, p. 62, pl. 18,
shows similar long incisions in the hair.
This is the portrait of a middle-aged man with thinning, close-croppedhair, a straggly beard,
mustache and sideburns. The hair recedes above the temples at the sides, and where it recedes
the surface is indented, giving the skull a strange, lumpy appearance.' The texture of the hair
is indicated by little curved incisions in a slightly rough surface, radiating from a spot on the
crown and running in the directionsin which the hair is supposed to be growing. In some places
two little incisions converge to a point so as to define a short pointed lock, but not in every case
are they so carefully drawn. The straggly beard is rendered by longer chiselled lines. The face
is long and thin, almost gaunt, but entirely without wrinkles or furrowsexcept for three sharply
engraved lines across the forehead. The eyes are wide open, but with wide upper lids arched
above them. The upper lids are undercut to emphasize their contours, and sharp engraved
lines separate them from the under sides of the eyebrows. The pupils are shallow circularcups;
58 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
the outlines of the iris are sharply engraved. The surface of the face is covered by heavy rasp
marks, the strokes running mostly in one direction.
This portrait of an older man shows a striking resemblance to a youthful portrait from the
"Valerian Wall," presumably that of an ephebe (P1. 46,b).2 The resemblance suggests that
perhaps the present head has the best claim of any of the Agora portraits to be a kosmetes, for
it almost certainly comes from the same workshop as the ephebe. In both of these heads the
upper eyelids are wide, flat ribbons which do not taper to the corners of the eyes, but melt into
the surroundingflesh. In both the pupils are shallow cups, and the outlines of the iris and the
eyelids are sharply incised lines. In both the lips protrude and are slightly parted, adding to the
look of slackness that pervades the whole. The rasp, a relatively coarse one in this case, is used
in broad sweeps in one direction, just as it is used on the ephebe and on a sarcophagusportrait
in Athens convincingly comparedwith the latter by L'Orange.3 The sarcophagushead also has
the beard cut in the same way, with long, wispy sideburnsand thin mustache, the lower lip and
part of the chin bare, and only a few ends of the beard extending down onto the neck.
It may be that some of the similaritiesbetween ourhead and that of the ephebe, e. g. the peculiar
shape of the head, the prominent cleft chin and the dull expression, go beyond mere identity
of style and point to a family connection between the two persons portrayed. There are several
instances attested by inscriptions in which the son of a kosmetes held a prominent place in the
class of ephebes over which his father presided,4and it is not impossible that we have such a
pair before us. We have no actual evidence as to whether or not our portrait comes from a
herm,5 though a marked asymmetry in the carving of the eyes, the left eye being wider open
than the right and with a greater convexity in the eyeball, may again indicate a slight turn of
the head to the right, such as we had in the herm portrait No. 39 above. The hairline at the
back of the neck is left in a roughly chiselled state, suggesting that it may have been masked by
a cloak which passed around the back of the neck.
The head of the ephebe was dated by L'Orangein the Late Severan period,6but its resem-
blance to the present portrait now makes it clear that it is later. The eyes of the Agora head
with their wide lids and emphasized contours seem to belong to the time of Decius. The coarse
forehead wrinkles, ruthlessly carved into the flesh, and the equally coarse rendering of the
eyebrows, hair and beard find their best parallels in the same period. The type of the long,
narrow face with its doleful expression and parted lips is rather like that of the philosopher,
often called "Plotinus," on a sarcophagus in the Lateran which Rodenwaldt dated as late as
265-270.7 The Agora portrait can scarcely be so late, however. If the sarcophagusis really late
Gallienian,the philosopher'sface, like his hair style, must be somewhat old-fashioned.
In this head from the Agora the dissolution of forms that has been noted in Roman portraits
of the period of Deciuss is particularly obvious, because this portrait is so simple that there is
little to distract one's attention from the fact. The portrait seems to be melting before our eyes,
and we wonder what direction the development of the style can take from here. Actually, it
seems to have taken two directions, for we find in the ensuing period works of widely divergent
characterbut all showing some relation to the style we are now considering.In the larger group,
which continues to follow the phases of urban Roman style, we find a new tension introduced;
the frowns grow deeper, the eyes bulge, and the heads look solider, more compact. A portrait of
a kosmetes which may be taken as typical of this trend9shows by its close relation to the portrait
of the ephebe how the one develops out of the other. On the other hand the blankness and
simplificationvisible in the Agora portrait find continuation in a number of Athenian portraits
CATALOGUE 59
done in a drier style, in which symmetry and an almost geometrical austerity of design provide
the basis for the composition.'0Thus we find the threat of disintegration countered in one of
two ways: either by an intensification of the expression of the portrait or by a new emphasis on
its purely formal aspects. In neither case is there a recovery of what has been lost in the render-
ing of the organic structure of the head. Our portrait, which seems to stand at the fork from
which this dual development branches off, acquires because of this position an interest that its
mediocre technique and vague characterizationwould not warrant.
1 That the lumps are in the skull and are not merely caused by the presence or absence of hair is shown by the fact that the
head of an ephebe in the National Museum in Athens (P1. 46, b; Graindor, Cosmites, no. 22, p. 354, fig. 26; L'Orange, Stu-
dien, figs. 20, 22) has the same lumps.
2 See above, note 1.
3 Studien,
p. 12, figs. 21, 23; Rodenwaldt, Jahrb., XLV, 1930, p. 128, fig. 8 and p. 135, fig. 13.
4 E.g. Graindor, Cosmetes,p. 253 (Eirenaios), pp. 258f. (Aurelius Dositheos), and I.G., II2, 2193 (Tryphon).
5 The majority of the stone portraits of kosmetai seem to have been in the form of herms, though there is evidence for the
existence of full-length statues in some cases: in 1. G., 112, 1041 line 33 (first century B.C.) mention is made of the &vSpl&s
of a kosmetes.
6 Studien, p. 12.
7 Jahrb., LI, 1936, p. 104, fig. 10, pl. 6.
8 L'Orange, Studien, p. 4. See below, pp. 96-97.
* Graindor,
Cosmdtes,no. 24, p. 358, fig. 27; L'Orange, Studien, cat. no. 3, figs. 13, 15. Graindor'soriginal date, in the time
of Trebonianus Gallus, must be approximately correct.
10 See below No. 51 and pp. 99-100.
46. PORTRAIT OF A LITTLE BOY, THIRD QUARTER OF THE THIRD CENTURY Plate 29.
Inv. S 1312.FoundMarch12, 1948builtinto the wall of a modernpit just westof the west endof the
MiddleStoa(H 13).
Pentelic marble.H. 0.205m., W. 0.15 m., H. chin to crown0.20 m.
Headbrokenoffat neck.Nosebrokenoff;left cheek,earsandchinchipped.A slicebrokenofffromback
of headstartinga littleabovehairlineon napeof neckandextendingalmostto crown.
Publishedby H. A. Thompson, Hesperia,XVIII,1949,p. 220,pl. 43, 2.
This is a life-sized portrait of a young boy wearing on his head a wreath of tiny, close-packed
leaves. His hair is cut quite short on all the preserved parts of the head, but since a piece of the
back of the head is missing, it is not impossible that he wore a longer scalp-lock in back similar
to that worn by No. 41 above.' The hairline over the forehead is oval, with a little crescent
lock in front of the ear on each side. Little curved chisel strokes are used to represent the hair.
They are rather fine and careful in front, below the wreath, rougher on top of the head and
quite crude in back. The eyebrows are not modelled. Short incised strokes across the edges of
the eyebrow arches indicate the hairs. The upper eyelids project strongly, overshadowing the
eyes. The eyeballs are set in an overhanging position and the outer corners of the eyes are set
lower than the inner corners,so that the two eyes are not quite on the same axis. The pupils are
deeply cut cardioids and the sharply engraved iris lines surround them with a narrow border.
CATALOGUE 61
The mouth is unusually small and is unsymmetricalin shape, with thin lips slightly parted. The
face in general shows little modelling. The forehead is smooth and flat, without the roundness
of a young child's forehead. The neck is a simple cylinder which intersects abruptly the simple
curved planes of the face. There is no intimation of the existence of a jawbone. The surface of
the face is rasped all over in long, parallel strokes.
For all his youth, this little boy wears the same world-weary expression as do his older con-
temporaries. A dating is suggested by the striking similarity that exists, despite the difference
in the ages of the persons portrayed, between this head and the portrait of a middle-aged man
in the National Museum in Athens.2 The slack, small mouths with the lower lips projecting
in a thin edge are particularlyalike in the two heads. Also similar are the overhanging eyes, the
flat eyebrow arches and the shape of the face. The National Museum portrait belongs to the
period of Gallienus, and our little boy, though a less distinguished piece of work, is doubtless
to be dated in the same period.
1 For the significance of these locks see above, No. 41.
2
N.M. no. 349, L'Orange, Studien, cat. no. 11, figs. 26, 27. A family connection between the man and the child seems not
unlikely if we bear in mind that the wreath and strophion which the man wears in a replica of this portrait (P1.46, d;
L'Orange, op. cit., cat. no. 12, figs. 25, 29) are thought to be the insignia of the high priest of the imperial cult (see below,
No. 49) who apparently was always a member of the genos of the Kerykes (Oliver, The Athenian Expounders, p. 98) and that
the r-iiSs
Edp' ufnSjrivEs were generally offspring of the Eleusinian priestly families (e.g. I.G., II2, 3688, Publia Aelia
olTra-;
Herennia, whose great-uncle was the dadouchos P. Aelius Dionysios; 3693, Claudia Themistokleia, daughter of the
dadouchos C1.Philippos; 3708, P. Aelius Timosthenes, son of a pythochrestes; 3710, Onoratiane Polycharmis, daughter of
Claudia Themistokleia; and 3679, Junia Themistokleia, daughter of Onoratiane Polycharmis.
This is the portrait of a man of undeterminedage with a short beard and curly hair of medium
length. The beard leaves no space bare within the area that it encloses, and mustache and beard
are scarcely distinguishedfrom one another. Rather straight vertical strokes in a slightly raised
surface give the effect of a stiff, straight beard cut to a length of about one centimeter all over.
It overlaps a little way onto the neck. The outlines of the locks of hair, which curl in crescent or
comma shapes all over the head, are coarsely cut with the drill out of the flat, cap-like mass that
covers the head. The inner drawing of the locks, done with the chisel, is equally coarse.
The eyebrows are flat arches with the hairs indicated by coarse horizontal incisions along the
edge. The eyes are long, narrow and flat, with heavy upper lids. The pupils are cardioid and
fairly small; the outlines of the irises are carelessly engraved. The face shows little modelling.
The forehead has none except for a very shallow horizontal groove separating the upper part
from the lower. The mouth is small, set into the wide bearded area with little structural relation
to the face. The flesh surfaces are smoothed, but not polished.
The head was found in a well deposit which accumulated following the sack of the area by the
Heruli in A.D. 267,1 and the marks of burning strengthen the supposition that the portrait was
destroyed at that time. The otherwise fresh and unweathered condition of the marble suggests
that the portrait was still fairly new when the destruction occurred. The style of the head is in
agreement with this evidence. The long flat eyes recur in portraits of Gallienus,2and the heavy
upper lids find parallels in other Athenian portraits of his time.3 The longish hair, growing
rather low on the back of the neck, conforms to the Gallienianmode, though the all-over short
beard, while worn by both the preceding and the succeeding emperors, was not worn by
Gallienushimself. The coarse outlining of the locks with the drill in our head closely resembles
that on two portraits of kosmetai, one of which is epigraphicallydated to A.D. 238/9.4 Here as
there it is doubtless an extension to portrait sculpture of a technique used in cheap copies and
imitations of classical sculpture and in the carving of relief sarcophagi.
This portrait lacks the dramatic intensity of better works of its time.5 Instead of etching the
man's face with furrows of passionate anxiety, the spirit of the precarious times in which he
lived has merely cast over his flat features a dim veil of melancholy. How much of the flatness
CATALOGUE 63
is a matter of style and how much merely mediocre workmanshipis difficult to say. Doubtless
both played a part. Certainly the work is rather crude. The large amorphous ears show this
particularly. It seems probable, however, that an eastern influence which seems to have begun
to touch Athens around the middle of the third century is at least partly responsible for the
calm flat symmetry of this head.6 A small portrait head in Amsterdam, originatingin all likeli-
hood from Egypt, offers a very good parallel for the coiffure of our portrait with its flat curled
locks forming an oval hairline over the forehead.' The wide staring eyes of the Amsterdamhead
with their crescent pupils give it a much more oriental look than we find in the Agora portrait,
but there is enough general similarity between the two to call attention to a distinctly oriental
flavor in the Athenian work. Ponger dates the Amsterdamportrait A.D. 260-270.
1 H. A.
Thompson, The Tholos of Athens and its Predecessors,Hesperia, Supplement IV, p. 101.
2 Cf. L'Orange, Studien, figs. 8, 9; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 298.
8 Cf. No. 46 above and P1. 46, d.
SGraindor, Cosm&tes, no. 20, p. 349, fig. 24 and no. 21, p. 353, pl. 21. For the most recent dating see Notopoulos, Hesperia,
XVIII, 1949, p. 40.
5 Contrast it, for example, with No. 49 below and with its better
preserved replica in Eleusis (P1.46, e).
6 See
below, pp. 66-67.
I C.S.
Ponger, Katalog der griechischenund ramischenSkulptur, der steinernenGegenstandeund der Stuckplastikim Allard
Pierson Museum zu Amsterdam(Allard Pierson Stichting, Bijdragen, XI), no. 125, pp. 62f., pls. 30-31. Since the head formed
part of the Von Bissing collection, there is every probability that it came from Egypt (ibid., p. 63, note 5).
50. PORTRAIT OF A MAN, LAST QUARTER OF THE THIRD CENTURY Plate 32.
Inv. S 1256.FoundJune 7, 1947in an earlyByzantinewall at the bottomof the valley betweenthe
Areopagus andthe Hillof the Nymphs,westof the northwestspurof the Areopagus
(D 17).
Pentelicmarble.H. 0.265 m., W. 0.195 m., H. chin to crown0.245 m.
Headbrokenoffat neck.Nosebrokenoff.Eyebrows, centralpartsof eyes,lips,chinchippedaway.Features
but on left sidetemple,cheekandjowlwellenoughpreservedto give
on rightsideof facenearlyobliterated,
anideaof the modelling.Wholesurfacewornandcrumbling.
This appears to be the portrait of a rather elderly man. Both hair and beard are cut rather
short, the hair combed forward horizontally and the beard brushed horizontally back to the
sides. The hairline is deeply indented at the temples, curving forward over the forehead and on
the sides. The hair is drawn with the chisel in a linear suggestion of short strands. The beard is
indicated by rather coarse curved incisions running in a more or less horizontal direction.
Nothing remains of the inner drawing of the eyes.
The cut of the hair and beard is closely paralleled in other Athenian works, which L'Orange
places in the early Tetrarchic period. The face too resembles closely those of other Athenian
portraits of the late third century (Pl. 47, e).1The features are heavy and grim, so deeply cut that
they have in part survived the pitiless erosion of the surface that the portrait has suffered. Two
deep horizontalwrinklesare visible in the brow, and there may have been a third one below these.
CATALOGUE 65
The eyesockets are deep, with the eyes themselves bulging out from them. Since the prominent
parts of the eyeballs have been chipped away, the intensity of expression which the eyes must
have had originally has been completely lost. The cheeks are flabby, and deep, harsh folds run
diagonally below them. There are folds also at the corners of the mouth. If the right side of the
face were better preserved, we should probably find the same "restless asymmetry" that
characterizesother portraits of its kind.2All these works belong in general to the western, more
naturalistic school distinguished by L'Orange from the more formalized, eastern school of
portraiture of the early Tetrarchic period and, more specifically, to the Greek subdivision of
this school.3The Agora head in its present condition adds nothing to our knowledge of the style,
but its existence is worth recordingfor the sake of statistics.
1 L'Orange, Studien, cat. nos. 53, 55, 56, figs. 98-99, 102-105. He concludes (p. 39) that the hair brushed forward onto
the forehead and separated by indentations from the side hair is a peculiarly Greek fashion of the period. Since the longish
hair probably descends directly from the Gallienian style, and the brushed-back beard is already the fashion in the time of
Claudius Gothicus (cf. ibid., figs. 243, 244), it is quite possible that some of these Athenian heads are somewhat earlier than
the time of the Tetrarchy. Owing to the scarcity of material from Athens belonging to the late third century, a period when
economic collapse seems to have made portraits an increasingly rare luxury, it is doubtful whether Athenian works of this
period can ever be closely dated except through identification, as in the case of L'Orange, cat. no. 53, which he believes is
a portrait of Diocletian. Cat. no. 56 (P1. 47, e), which is the closest of the three to our head, though obviously a work of
higher quality, has slenderer proportions and more careful modelling than the other two and lacks the heavy folds under the
eyes. Hence it has a good chance of being earlier than the others.
2 L'Orange, op. cit., p. 39.
3 Ibid., p. 44.
wrong in the original carving of them and that what we have is an awkwardattempt to salvage
the situation. The fact that the cavity of the left ear is over-large and oddly shaped would
support such a suggestion. The outline of the hair is most nearly duplicated in two heads in the
National Museumin Athens which have been classed as works of the Tetrarchicperiod belong-
ing to the formalizedeastern school of art.1 These two heads also have stippled beards, but they
lack the peculiar linear treatment of the locks of hair that distinguishesthe Agorahead. For the
latter a partial parallel may be found in a fragmentary head in Olympia on which the locks are
represented by the same sort of coarse parallel grooves arrangedin an illogically overlapping
pattern.2 Here, however, the hairline is a smooth oval line like that of the period of Constantine,
and the sharp, unengraved eyebrows and blank eyeballs suggest Constantinian classicism.3
Both in the two heads in the National Museum and in the Olympia head the workmanshipis
much cruder than in the Agora portrait; the modelling is harsh and irregularand the surface is
poorly finished.
Perhaps the closest parallel for the coarse linear drawing of the locks within the outline of the
hair mass is to be found not in stone sculpture but in terracottas of the third and fourth
centuries, in which the gouged technique is a natural one. We may compare a series of plastic
jugs from the Agora (P1. 47,d), some of which come from contexts certainly earlier than A.D.
267.4 In these head-vases we find already much of the geometrical simplification, the stiffness
and symmetry that are characteristicof fourth-century sculpture.
The surface modelling of the flesh in our portrait, in spite of its simplification, is not hard or
sharp. Except for the eyebrows all the edges are blunted in a way that makes the outlines and
shadows seem less harsh and the marble somehow more translucent. This is to be noted in the
full lips and, more particularly,in the eyes. This same blunted effect occurs also in a portrait of
an ephebe in the Athens National Museum (P1. 46,a) which has, like our head, a rigid, almost
ornamentalsymmetry of design.5Because of this symmetry and because the hair is all brushed
forward onto the forehead in an oval hairline, the ephebe has hitherto been dated to the time
of Constantine.6So late a date can now be proved to be untenable, since the "Valerian Wall,"
in the filling of which the portrait of the ephebe was found, is shown by the results of the Agora
excavations to have been constructed around A.D. 280.7 So far as we can judge, in the present
state of our knowledge, a date between 267 and 275 is perhaps the most plausible for the ephebe,
since such a date would reconcile the demands of style and those of archaeologicalprobability.8
In the case of our present portrait the problem is more difficult. While certain traits of the
style suggest a late date, the evidence of its proveniencehas led H. A. Thompsonto favor a date
before 267. The head was found built into an aqueduct of the fifth century after Christin which
were incorporated fragments of other sculptures and inscriptions damaged in the sack of 267.
If the head belonged to a portrait set up after 267, it must have been carried from elsewhere,
since no portraitswould have been set up in the ruined Agorain the years immediately following
the destruction. Since, however, it is not a stone particularly adapted to wall-building, it is
highly improbablethat it would have been hauled in from elsewhereexpressly for that purpose,
especially when there was so much debris lying ready to hand. All questions of style apart,
therefore, the simplest explanation would be that the portrait was itself destroyed in 267 and
lay among the other debris of this destruction until it was picked up and used by the builders
of the aqueduct.9
If our portrait must indeed be dated before 267, its style is perhaps best to be explained by
the assumption that the eastern influence which in the time of the Tetrarchy led, as L'Orange
CATALOGUE 67
has demonstrated,10to the creation of a symmetrical, geometrized style that ran parallel to a
more naturalistic western Roman style actually began to be effective as early as the middle of
the third century. A hint of this is perhaps to be seen in the pre-Herulianhead-vases mentioned
above. A bronze portrait of Gordian III in Sofia from Nikopolis ad Istrum, the product of a
local Balkan workshop, already shows, as K. Lehmann points out, the stiffness that we expect
in later works." Like our Agora portrait, it shows a flat, unmodelled forehead and a sharp,
rectilinearhairline. The shape of the eyes is very close to that of our head, and the eyebrows are
similarly, though more elaborately rendered. The surface of the hair, on the other hand, is
treated in the manner usual to works of the mid third century, and supports the dating and
identification of the head. In the non-Greekprovinces of the Roman Empire there may be some
question as to how far the early appearanceof a decorative, geometrized style is due to eastern
influence and how much to a resurgenceof tendencies inherent in the local art. In the case of
Greece, it can only be the former, but the greater proximity of Greece to the East and the
weakening of the political and economic control of Rome would explain its receiving the eastern
influence earlierthan Rome itself.
At present our knowledge of Athenian portrait style in the mid third century is inadequate
either to prove or to preclude a date before 267 for our portrait. On the other hand, the archae-
ological evidence of its provenience which favors the earlier date is by no means water-tight.12
It seems impossible, therefore, to assign a date to the piece or to fit it into a developmental
series. These uncertainties merely add to the interest of this unusual head, which by its refusal
to conform to ready-made categories reminds us how much remains to be explored before
Greece'srole in the transition to Late-Classicall3 art is thoroughly understood.
1 L'Orange, Studien, p. 27, cat. nos. 19 and 20, figs. 53-57, N.M. nos. 536 and 658.
2 Olympia, III, p. 249, 283d.
3 Cf. below, No. 53.
4 H. S. Robinson contributes the following note on these plastic head-vases: "Eight of these vases (Inv. P 570, 5514,
6206, 10004, 10240 (plus 10244 which joins), 10762, 11939 and T 1048) are represented in the Agora catalogue. Of these, four
come from fills which are unreliable for dating purposes (P 570, 5514, 6206 and T 1048). P 10762 is from a well filling which
is probably post-Herulian. P 10004 (P1.47, d; Hesperia, VII, 1938, pp. 348-9, fig. 33) is from a well filling which is probably
pre-Herulian. P 10240 and 11939 are from a well filling almost certainly pre-Herulian. The evidence of P 10004, 10240 and
11939 points to a pre-Herulian origin for the head vases. An even stronger argument for such a dating lies in the form of the
neck and trefoil lip, as illustrated especially in P 10004 and P 11939. Such lips occur commonly in unglazed oinochoes of
the third century after Christ; these also often have grooves about the neck (as P 10004) and are of the same fabric as several
of the head vases. This type of neck and lip does not seem to occur in post-Herulian deposits."
5 Graindor, Cosm&tes, no. 33, pp. 378ff., pl. 26; L'Orange, Studien, cat. no. 85, figs. 161, 162.
6 Graindor, loc. cit.; L'Orange,
op. cit., pp. 57 f.
7 See below, p. 91.
8 See below, pp. 99-100.
9 H. A. Thompson, loc. cit., above, p. 65,
10L'Orange, Studien, pp. 16ff.
11 Kluge and Lehmann-Hartleben, Die antiken Grossbronzen(Berlin and Leipzig, 1927), II, p. 48, fig. 3; Filow, L'Art
antique en Bulgarie (Sofia, 1925), p. 54, fig. 43.
12For example, the head might conceivably have been fetched from elsewhere in Athens during the fifth century to adorn
one of the draped torsos which were recovered from the ruins of the Odeion and set up in the area of the Gymnasium that
was constructed here around A.D. 400. See below, pp. 74-75.
13For the definition of the term "Late-Classical"see below, p. 90, note 1.
The short hair is combed forward and down over the forehead. The hairline is a smooth
symmetrical curve, uninterrupted by the contours of the individual locks, but with a tiny
ogival point in the center. The locks are very flatly chiselled, the drill not being used. They are
laid in more or less formal rows from front to back, becoming increasingly shallow and poorly
defined as they go back. The forehead is without modelling. The eyebrows are smooth arcs with
no plastic rendering. The eyelid is sharp-edged. The eyeball is smooth with no sign of drilled
pupil or engravediris. This head is slightly under life-size, and there is not enough of it preserved
to make it certain whether it was a portrait in the round or part of a relief. The hair brushed
forward in rows of short overlapping locks and the symmetrically arched hairline correspond
to the mode established in the time of Constantine. The shape of the locks and their flat carving
are paralleledin the head of Constantinein a medallion on the Arch of Constantine,'though the
hairline there is not yet so schematized nor the modelling so simplified. In view of the rigid
schematization that appearsin some Athenian work even beforeConstantine,it seems unneces-
sary to make this portrait later than his reign, though as a second-rateandthoroughlygeneralized
(as well as sadly fragmentary) piece it is not to be dated too closely. The lack of inner drawing
in the eye may be part of a classicism that also started in the time of Constantine.2
Undistinguished though it is, this fragment is probably a fair representative of the sort of
work that was being done in Athens in the fourth century. It well illustrates the shallow
quality of surface carving that seems to be characteristic of very late Athenian sculpture.3The
surface rudeness that we find in much late third century work has been smoothed away again,
but no charactersurvives beneath the smoothness. What is left is pure formula, icy and vacant.
1 L'Orange, Studien, figs. 120-122; L'Orange and von Gerkan, Der spatantike Bildschmuckdes Konstantinbogens(Studien
zur spdtantikenKunstgeschichte,X, Berlin, 1939), pl. 43, a-c.
2
L'Orange, Studien, pp. 56f. Cf. also the head of an emperorin Berlin, ibid. cat. no. 83, fig. 159. A head in Olympia (Olym-
pia, III, p. 249, fig. 283d) with an oval hairline and stippled beard, of rather crude workmanship generally, shows the same
classicizing treatment of the eyes and eyebrows.
3 See below, p. 70.
suspect, however, that the sculptor himself did not know exactly where each bit of hair came
from nor where it was going. A band of waves frames the face, covering the ears. Just behind
this a broad twist of hair is brought forward from behind each ear and across the top of the
head. What happened to it in the center there is no way of knowing, for this part is not pre-
served. Behind that is a second twist encircling the entire head.2 A raised strip, presumably
representing a braid, runs up the back of the head. The main masses of the hair are simply
blocked out and given a relatively smooth chisel finish. In the wave-band that frames the face
the troughs of the waves are hollowed out somewhat, but the edge of the hair is not scalloped
to conform to the waves. The strands are engraved with thin, scratchy lines both in the waves
and in the torus-like twists behind the wave-band. There is no indication of strands of hair on
the back of the head. Even more than the preceding portrait this over life-sized head with its
feeble carving illustrates the reluctance of very late Athenian sculptors to cut into the stone.
A broad smoothed area below the hair in back concealing the back of the neck may be part
of a garment that came up high in the back or it may be simply a piece of stone left there to
strengthen the neck.3In either case we should probably assume that the head was workedin one
piece with the statue to which it belonged, as was certainly the case in our fifth-century togatus
from the Agora.4
Its size indicates that this must be a portrait of a lady of the imperial household, for it seems
utterly unlikely that any lesser female would have been so honored in Athens in this period.
Her identity is scarcely to be read from her features, and even her highly distinctive coiffure
does not permit close dating. Of the style of the face the only thing discernible is that there
were heavy pouches under the eyes, a device used especially from the late Constantinianperiod
on to emphasize the expression of the eyes.5 The general type of hairdress worn by our lady
remains in use throughout the greater part of the fourth century, but there is no exact parallel
for the peculiar arrangementthat we have here. For the back hair blocked out and smoothed
without indication of strands a parallel is to be found in a portrait in Como apparently re-
presenting a lady of the House of Constantine.6A clear example of the braid up the center
of the back in combination with a coronet of hair and front waves is to be seen in a portrait of
Flaccilla, now in New York, dated by Delbriick around 380 (P1. 48, a).' This shows the narrow
oval face and attenuated features that seem to be characteristicof the late fourth century.8Our
head with its massive forms ought probably, therefore, to be dated somewhat earlier,though
the fourth-century material from Athens is too sparse to let us know to what extent the tides
of current imperial fashion were felt in this provincial backwater. A considered guess would
place our portrait somewherebetween 325 and 370.
1 Cf. Wessel, Arch. Anz., 1946-7, cols. 70 f., fig. 4 and Delbriick, Spatantike Kaiserportrits, pp. 47ff.
2 If we assume that our sculptor was completely confused about the nature of the coiffure he was portraying, we might
say that the two twists ought properly to have been the upper and lower halves of a heavy coronet braid, in which the braiding
was often schematically indicated by herringbone hatchings (cf. P1. 48, a). The rounded terminations of the lower half would
then have been transferred by mistake from the next layer down, the wave-band, which in many cases does have such a
termination (see Wessel, op. cit., fig. 4 and Delbrtick, op. cit., pl. 11, top row).
3 Cf. a statue of a woman in Saloniki, Pelekanidis, B.C.H., LXXIII,
1949, pl. 13.
4 No. 64 below.
6 Cf. L'Orange, Studien, figs. 166-168; Delbriick, op. cit., pl. 69 and p. 51, fig. 20.
6
Delbrtick, op. cit., pl. 70.
'Ibid., pls. 99-101, p. 202. Acquired in 1947
by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, B.M.M.A., VII, 1948-9,
p. 14.
8 See L'Orange, op. cit., pp. 74-76.
CATALOGUE 71
PORTRAIT STATUES
56. PORTRAIT STATUE OF THE EMPEROR HADRIAN (A.D. 117-138) Plates 36-37.
Inv. S 166.FoundJuly 25, 1931in the GreatDrainof the Agoraat a pointabout8 meterseastof the
northeastcornerof the Metroon(I 9); removedfromthe drainFebruary9, 1932.Thetorsohad evidently
of A.D.267,as a coverslabforthe Great
been re-usedin late Romantimes,afterthe Heruliandestruction
Drain,the channelof whichis here1.10m. wide.Onthe drainthe statuehadlainface down;its backis
slightlywornby traffic.
Pentelicmarble.H. 1.52 m.; W. at shoulders0.82 m.
72 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
Head,left armandrightforearm,madeseparatelyand attached,nowmissing.Both legs brokenoff at
knees.Partof rightleg possiblypreservedin a non-joiningfragment(seebelow).Chipsgonefromedgesof
strapsin kilt andfromrelief on
figures cuirass.'
Publishedby T. L. Shear,Hesperia,II, 1933,pp. 178-183,figs.8-10, pl. 6; of. alsoArch.Anz.,1932,col.
112,fig.5; ArtandArchaeology,XXXIV,1933,p. 22; P. Graindor, Athknes sousHadrien,pp. 258-259.-
The torso, of heroic size, has a deep socket (P1.37) for the insertion of the tenon by which the
head, carved in a separate piece, was attached. The right arm was dowelled on at the joint
between the short sleeve of the tunic and the bare arm, the edge of the sleeve forming an
overlapping rim that protected the joint. The raised left arm was dowelled on at the shoulder.
On the top of the left shoulder is a small remnant of a fillet, undercut at one point so as to
rise free from the shoulder. Beyond it is a large shallow bedding, perhaps intended to receive
a lug cut in one piece with the arm to assist in the support of the arm and to protect the joint
against rain water. Another large open bedding on the right shoulder outside the brooch
perhaps received the other end of the fillet.
The Emperor wears a metal cuirass bordered at the lower edge with a double row of short,
rounded lappets. The front of the cuirass and the lappets are decorated with symbolic figures
in high relief. A kilt formed of a single tier of leather straps with fringed ends extends to the
knees, and a double row of shorter straps protects the shoulders. Beneath the armor is worn
a short tunic of which the lower edge and the right sleeve are visible. Over it is thrown a heavy
paludamentumfastened on the right shoulder by a circularbrooch. It crosses the chest in front
and is thrown back over the left shoulder, so that it covers the back of the statue but leaves the
arms free.
The decoration of the cuirass, which provides the means of identifying the statue, symbolizes
with admirable conciseness the philhellenic policy of the Roman ruler. It occurs in at least
nine other examples,2 all found in the Greek East, of which two3 preserve portrait heads of
Hadrian. A Palladion in archaistic form, armed with spear and shield, stands on a figure of the
she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, which rests in turn upon a fan of acanthus leaves. Vine-
tendrils springing from the leaves frame the representation and provide a ground-line for two
figures of Victory which flank the goddess, holding wreaths with which to crown her. Between
the Victories and Athena smaller tendrils support the goddess's attributes, the owl and the
snake. The lappets are symmetrically decorated with a series of emblems which occurs with
minor variations not only on the statues with the Palladion but also on some with a different
theme.4 Reading from the center out, they are: in the first row, head of Ammon, eagle with
outspread wings, Medusa head in profile,5elephant head; in the second row, helmet, lion head,
and rosette.
The Emperor stands with his weight resting on the right leg, the left leg relaxed. The left arm
was upraised, presumably holding a spear, and the right arm was extended forward. The pose
of the legs and body seems to have been the same as in the statue of the same type found in
Kisamos in Crete.6The position of the arms may be visualized from the statue in Olympia7of
which the arms are preserved.
No two of the surviving examples of the type are identical. Variations occur in the pose, in
minor details of the decoration (the owl is to Athena's left on our statue and on that fromHier-
apytna, to the right on those from Olympia and Kisamos), in the elaboratenessof the rendition
and in the form of the supports. A fragment of a right leg (P1.37) found in 1936 possibly belongs
to our statue.8 It wears a high boot made of a panther skin, the head and the two paws hanging
CATALOGUE 73
down from above; in front are traces of crisscross lacing. The leg is carved in one piece with
the stump of a palm tree of which the top is preserved,the back rough-picked.The panther-skin
boots occur regularly in armored statues of Hadrian, both of this type and of others.9 The
palm-tree support recursin the very fragmentarystatue of the present type found in the Odeion
at Corinth.10
The remnants of the fillet on the left shoulder show that the head of our statue was crowned
with a wreath. The preservedheads from Olympia and Hierapytna wear wreaths of laurel, but a
head from Athens which must have belonged to a statue in armorhas a wreath of oak leaves."
Since our statue is probably the one which Pausanias saw in front of the Stoa Basileios in the
Agora,'2we should perhaps restore it with the oak wreath, the coronacivica, which honors the
Emperor as the savior of his people's lives and would so render him a fit companion for Zeus
Eleutherios, the liberator of the people.
The carving of our statue is free and bold, showing more movement and variety in the folds
of the paludamentumacross the chest and in the straps of the kilt than does the statue in
Olympia, but in delicacy and wealth of detail it is vastly inferior to the fragmentary statue in
Corinth. The armor and drapery are finished with a medium rasp. A light polish visible on the
knees suggests that all the flesh surfaces were so treated. The faces of the minor figures are
likewise lightly polished. The drill was used sparingly to make the lappets stand out from their
backgroundand to enliven the fringes of the kilt. The outer cornersof the mouths of the Medusa
heads have been emphasized by shallow drill holes. A similarly restrained use of the drill is to
be seen in the carving of the panther-skin boot. The Athenians seem to have shown their
gratitude to Hadrian as much in the quantity as in the quality of the statues they erected to
him,'3 and ours was evidently a run-of-the-mill example.'4
During World War II the heads of Athena and of the Victory to her right were broken away by vandals.
1
2
Hekler, Jahreshefte,XIX-XX, 1919, pp. 232-233, gives the following list (I have altered and somewhat shortened his
bibliography):
1) Constantinople, Inv. no. 50; from Hierapytna: Schede, Griechische und r6mische Skulpturen des Antikenmuseens
(Meisterwerkeder tuirkischenMuseen zu Konstantinopel, I), pl. 33; Hekler, op. cit., p. 230, fig. 158; West, II, pl. 33,
fig. 126; Reinach, Repertoire, II, 576, 9.
2) Olympia, III, pl. 65, 1; Kunze, OlympischeForschungen,I, pl. 23; Hekler, op. cit., p. 231, fig. 159; West, II, pl. 33,
fig. 125; Reinach, II, 575, 1.
3) London, British Museum, Smith, Catalogue,II, no. 1466, from Cyrene; Hekler, op. cit., p. 232, fig. 160; Reinach, II,
585, 6.
4) Kisamos (western Crete), Mon. Ant., XI, 1901, pl. 25, 1; Hekler, op. cit., p. 233, fig. 161; Reinach, III, 162, 4.
5) Gortyn, Mon. Ant., XI, 1901, col. 308, fig. 10; Reinach, III, 162, 3.
6) Athens, Acropolis Museum, Inv. 3000; Hiibner, Augustus, pl. 2, 2; Reinach, II, 585, 4. Only the left half of the torso
preserved.
7) Athens, National Museum, unnumbered. Only fragments of torso preserved.
8) Athens, Acropolis, in front of the west front of the Parthenon. Only the torso preserved, badly weathered and worked
off on the sides, probably for re-use as a building stone.
To this list may be added:
9) Corinth, Odeion, Broneer, Corinth,X, pp. 125-133, figs. 118-127, Inv. No. 1456.
The present statue is the tenth in the list.
3 Above, note 2, nos. 1 and 2.
4 A torso in Mantua (Hekler, op. cit., p. 228, no. 3) is described as having the identical series of motifs on the lappets
except that the elephant heads are omitted. In this case, however, the principal decoration on the cuirass consists of Nikai
sacrificing bulls.
5 These heads lack the wings that such heads generally carry, but the heavy necklaces with a knot in front seem to be a
simplification of the twined snakes that usually form the necklaces of such Medusa heads. Cf. the example from Corinth,
Broneer, op. cit., fig. 120.
6 Above, note 2, no. 4.
? Above, note 2, no. 2.
8
Inv. S 749. Found on May 6, 1936, built into a late house foundation near the southeast corner of the Temple of Ares
(L 8), (Hesperia, VI, 1937, p. 352). H. 0.555 m., W. 0.285 m.; of leg alone: H. 0.495 m., W. 0.167 m. Pentelic marble. Preserved
from just below the knee to a point just above the ankle. The smooth finish of the leg is comparable to that of the knees
74 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
of the statue. Not only in size and in the type of boot but also in the pose the leg is suitable for our statue, since the
presence of the support on the right side shows that the right leg was the weight leg.
9 Cf. the examples cited above, note 2, nos. 1, 4, and 9 of the Palladion type and Hekler, op. cit., p. 215, fig. 142 and p. 224,
fig. 151. The statue of Mars Ultor in the Capitoline, ibid., p. 191, fig. 119; Jones, Catalogue,pl. 7, 40, called by Hekler a
Hadrianic copy, has similar boots. They are worn also by a statue found in the Nymphaion of Herodes Atticus at Olympia
(Olympia, III, pl. 65, 2; Kunze, OlympischeForschungen,I, pl. 24) which Schleif and Weber (OlympischeForschungen,I, p. 60)
date in the Hadrianic period, excluding it from the reconstruction of the Nymphaion.
10Above, note 2, no. 9.
11N.M. 3729. Erd6lyi, Archaeologiai Ertesiti, LI, 1938, pp. 113-116, figs. 38-39; West, II, pl. 31, figs. 119-119 a. Found
on Leophoros Syngrou.
12 Pausanias, I, 3, 2.
13Cf. Hesperia, II, 1933, p. 183.
14 There was
evidently also a bronze statue of Hadrian in the Agora. Its base (Inv. I 4188) was found near the northwest
corner of the Odeion, and was published by Shear, Hesperia, VI, 1937, pp. 352-354, figs. 16, 17, with the suggestion that it
belonged to our present marble statue. H. A. Thompson informs me, however, that the association is ruled out by the presence
in the top of the base of unmistakable cuttings for the fastening of a statue of bronze. Although the top of the block is badly
broken one can readily distinguish the round hole (0.095 m. in diameter, 0.10 m. deep) for a dowel beneath the left heel and
a shallow bedding for the sole of the left foot. The statue had been removed by carefully chiselling around the back of the
dowels beneath the heels. In the place of the right foot there remains only a little of this chiselling.
style and from a different context, such a support seems to have been originally intended and
altered at the last minute.10
In technique the whole group of seven statues is strikingly homogeneous, though there are
minor differences in quality. Since the character of the workmanship points to the Antonine
period," H. A. Thompson sugests that all this sculpture may have been made for the Odeion
of Agrippa at the time of or soon after its reconstructionin the middle of the second century.
In the present example the workmanshipis painstaking. The front drapery has been roughly
finished with the emery, the flesh parts more carefully smoothed. Chisel and gouge marks are
prominent on the back. Drill and rasp are scarcely at all in evidence.
1 For plans cf. Hesperia, IX, 1940, pl. 1; XIX, 1950, p. 135, fig. 21.
SInv. S 826 and S 930. Published by H. A. Thompson, Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pp. 124-5, nos. 1-2, pls. 78-79.
3 The aqueduct is indicated as a heavy black line in Hesperia, IX, 1940, pl. 1.
4 Parsons, Hesperia, V, 1936, p. 88.
5 Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pp. 136f. For the evidence of damage and patching noted on Nos. 57, 58 and 61
cf. the repairs
effected on the Giants when they were re-used in the Gymnasium (Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pp. 105, 113). If any of the statues
pre-date the reconstruction of the Odeion they may have been damaged by the collapse of its roof and then repaired to be set
up again in the Odeion. For traces of damage to orchestra floor, marble benches and a statue base caused by the earlier
collapse of the Odeion roof cf. Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pp. 62, 63, 80.
6 The type descends from the statue of Aeschines (Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 53; Schefold, Bildnisse, p. 103), which differs
from it in placing the left hand on the hip, through the boy from Eretria, Hekler, op. cit., pl. 51, where the left hand takes
the position that later becomes canonical. Those of our statues that have the weight on the left foot conform exactly to the
scheme of the boy from Eretria except for the elimination of the crossfolds at the waist. Those with the weight on the right
foot resemble in this the Lateran Sophocles (Hekler, op. cit., pl. 52) and have sometimes been called "Sophocles type", but
the Sophocles is not a direct ancestor. I owe this genealogy to Margarete Bieber, who has traced the type from the 4th
century B.C. down into the middle ages.
7 This one scheme takes the place for male figures of a variety of Hellenistic drapery schemes used for women: the "Pu-
dicitia" type, the "Grande" and "Petite Herculanaise" types, the "Ceres" type, etc. It is so common on Attic gravestones
of the Roman period that Conze refers to it simply as "die fibliche Haltung". Probably the attitude connotes respect. There
seems to be no special significance attached to the distribution of the weight of the figure, alternation between the right and
left foot being simply a means of obtaining variety. This same pose and manner of draping is used also in figures wearing
the narrow toga of Republican Rome (cf. a group of four statues in Chiusi, Vessberg, pl. 85, 1-4).
8 See above, note 6.
9 In general the significance of the scrinium probably does not call for very close interpretation. Its uses must have been
at least as wide as those of the modern briefcase. It was a convenient form of support and would be suitable to almost any
male figure likely to be representedin civilian dress. Its addition by the Roman copyists to the statues of Sophocles, Aeschines
and Demosthenes shows the connection with letters and oratory. Politicians such as M. Nonius Balbus (Paribeni, pl. 161)
are ipso facto orators. Even a priestly function might involve the use of written documents (cf. the statues of Augustus
sacrificing: Paribeni, pl. 114; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pls. 165 b, 172). The book-box seems not to be represented unless a
support of some kind is needed. For bronze statues and seated figures a scroll in the hand served equally well.
10 See below, p. 78.
11 The statues may be compared in this respect with the "Giants" from the Odeion (Hesperia, XIX, 1950, pls. 61-71), the
figures from the Nymphaion of Herodes Atticus at Olympia (Olympia,III, pls. 65-69; Kunze, OlympischeForschungen,I, pls.
23, 25, 26) and the niche figure in the Odeion of Herodes in Athens (Neugebauer, Die Antike, X, 1934, p. 118, fig. 19).
For the pose and the general type see above, No. 57. The figure stands with his weight
chiefly on the right foot, the left knee slightly flexed. The workmanshipis inferior to that of
No. 60. The drapery over the front has been lightly rasped, but on the back and much of the
sides the marks of chisel and gouge are prominent. Even the right hand is roughly finished.
CATALOGUE 77
59. PORTRAIT STATUE OF A MAN IN HIMATION Plate40.
Inv. S 1346.Foundin 1937in the areato the eastof the Gymnasium
(seenoteonprovenance, above,p. 74).
Pentelicmarbleof goodquality.H. 1.42m., W. at shoulders0.565m.
Mendedfrommanyfragments. Head,workedseparatelyandset in a socket,nowmissing.Rightshoulder,
bothhands,feet andmuchof middlepartbrokenaway.Therighthandwasapparently damagedin antiquity
andreplaced;thereremainthe roughlypickedsocketforthe replacement andthe stainof an iron dowelby
whichit wassecured.Surfacemoderately weathered.
For the type and pose see above, No. 57. The figure rested his weight chiefly on his right
foot. The workmanshipis careful. The drapery on the front is finished smooth, apparently with
emery, since there is little trace of rasp work. Chisel and gouge marks are prominent on the
back.
For the type and pose see under No. 57 above. The weight of the figure rested chiefly on the
left foot. The workmanshipis careful. The drill is little in evidence. The surface of the drapery
is lightly rasped. Selvage, hem and a few crease marks have been indicated. The back is well
finished. Behind the left foot and just below the lower edge of the cloak is the top of a rectangular
object with a projecting band around the top of its wall, probably a book-box despite its
angularity.
The figure apparently stood with the weight chiefly on the left foot, for the right knee is
slightly flexed. For the type and pose see above, under No. 57. Beside the left leg was a cylin-
drical book-box with the lid in place. There remains a trace of the fastening of one end of the
looped cord handle. The left foot is shod in a heavy-soled boot, laced over the instep below a
thick, narrow tongue. The toes are exposed. The drapery is modelled in a bold and vigorous
style. Its surface is lightly rasped. The drill has been used in working out the details of the
boot. Selvage and hem of the garment are indicated.
78 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
62. PORTRAIT STATUE OF A MAN IN HIMATION Plate 40.
Inv. S 1354.Broughtto light in the excavationsof the GreekArchaeologicalSociety and left by the Greek
excavatorsin the north end of the Stoa of Attalos.
Pentelic marble. H. of statue 1.40 m., H. of base 0.15 m., W. of base 0.48 m., D. of base 0.45 m., socket for
tenon of head 0.15 m. wide and 0.15 m. deep.
Completeexcept for head, whichwas workedin a separatepiece, and for tips of fingersof left hand. Lightly
weathered.
For the pose and type see above, under No. 57. The figure rests its weight chiefly on the left
foot. A plain rectangular mass of marble supports the left ankle. A change in the surface from
smooth to rough suggests that the drapery over the left leg and foot was adjusted at a late
stage in the work and the front of the support changed from a convex to a straight face. Pos-
sibly a book-box was intended and was later eliminated in favor of a plain support. On the feet
sandals are schematically indicated. There are cuttings for hook dowels in the edges of the
plinth on both its ends and behind, to secure the plinth to its base.
The front and sides have been finished with emery. On the back chisel and gouge marks are
prominent. This statue differs markedly from the preceding five in the style of rendering the
folds. Especially striking is the rectilinear treatment of the folds over the bent right arm. Pos-
sibly the figure belongs in the third century after Christ.
The figure is dressed in the garments that are worn regularly by consuls and men of consular
rank in the Late Roman Empire: a long under-tunicwith long, tight sleeves, a somewhat shorter
upper tunic (colobium)with wide short sleeves, and a toga.1 Since both hands are missing, it is
not clear what attributes, if any, they held. The left shoulder, which is undamaged, reveals no
trace of a scepter such as we normally find carried in the left hand with its end resting on the
shoulder in statues representing consuls or viri consulares.2
The details of the drapery are fully worked out only on the front and the proper left side of
the statue. The back, except for a narrow strip along the left side, has been left in a rough-
picked state, and the same is true of the right side down to the level of the hand. The carving
is very shallow, and the statue, especially in its lower portion, retains to a surprisingdegree the
rectangularity of the block from which it was hewn. The lower portion of the long under-tunic
is virtually without folds. That of the colobiumis marked by perfectly straight vertical grooves,
while its lower edge is an unbroken horizontal offset. A rounded offset that appears on the sides
at about the level of the lowest dip of the toga may represent a long pouch of the colobium
drawn out over the belt, though I know of no other example in which this pouch is so long.3
Still a third offset appears a little above this on the right side; in terms of the usual costume it
can be explained only as the edge of a part of the toga that hangs down in back.4
The toga itself seems to be of the broad, "Eastern"type that we find in two statues of magis-
trates in the Palazzo dei Conservatoriand in statues fromConstantinople,Ephesus and Smyrna.5
The narrow rectangular end which hangs down below the rest of the toga in the center front
is representedin our statue as a perfectly flat surfaceunrelievedby folds or grooves. Whetherthis
end is to be regardedas a piece of the toga itself, as Miss Wilson makes it in her reconstruction
of late Roman togas,6 or whether it is a separate piece, as Delbriick and others have assumed
in their analyses of the toga of the consular diptychs,7is not clear in the present instance. The
toga has a wide sinus, which is drawn across from the proper right side, spread like an apron
over the front of the body and held up by the left hand.8 Part of a long end that hangs down
the back from the left shoulder is also caught up over the left wrist, producing a curve of
drapery on the left side that balances that in front. The balteus, the folded or bunched band
of toga that emergesfrom under the right arm and is drawn across the chest to the left shoulder,
does not fan out over the shoulder as it commonly does in statues of this type," but remains
bunched together. The balteusand the sinus are both sharply offset from the flat area between.
This area is so feebly carved that it scarcely gives the impression of being a part of the toga,
but a comparisonwith the other statues in this scheme shows that it is. The wide flat area on
the properleft side with its vertical boundary correspondsto the group of vertical folds running
up to disappearunder the balteusthat we always find on the left side in such statues, while the
set of feeble catenaries to the right is a reminiscence of the stronger curved folds usual in this
position. In contrast to this lack of emphasis is the prominent ornamental treatment given
to the bit of the edge of the toga that hangs down below the balteusin front of the left arm.1o
80 THE ATHENIAN AGORA: PORTRAIT SCULPTURE
On the right side the wide slit-like sleeve of the colobium,though it is caught up very close
under the armpit by the balteus,droops down below the right elbow. Chippingand weathering
have rendered the edge of the sleeve that crosses the right arm less distinct than that between
the right arm and the body. The rest of the colobiumappearing above the toga is given a very
sketchy treatment. Paint would no doubt have emphasized the faintly marked neckline. A
barely perceptible vertical offset above the right armpit probably represents the edge of a
broad purple stripe, the latus clavus. The bit of cloth that crosses the neckline diagonally on the
left side is presumably the continuation of the rectangular strip that hangs down the center
front.
In his study of the East Roman sculpture of the Theodosianperiod, Kollwitz dates the Agora
statue in the last quarter of the fifth century." There can be little doubt that this stiff, square
figure with its clumsy, shallow carving represents a degeneration from the works assigned by
Kollwitz to the first half of the century. We cannot be sure that the excellent bust of a bearded
man in the Athens National MuseuM'2is Athenian work (the marbleis Parian) but an inscription
recordinga bronze statue set up ca. A.D. 44013 suggests a certain degree of prosperity in Athens
at this time. Our torso, on the other hand, reflects poverty and failing technique. A parallel
contrast may be seen in Corinth between a torso wearing the chlamys dated by Kollwitz to the
early fifth century'4and a later statue in the same scheme made by cutting down a female draped
statue of classical type.15The Agora togatus doubtless stood in or near the Late Roman Gym-
nasium in the Agora near which it was found. Thus the closing of the schools of Athens by
Justinian in the year 529 may represent a sort of terminus ante quem. Kollwitz supports his
dating in the last quarter of the fifth century by a comparison of the figure with that on the
consular diptych of Boethius, of the year 487 (P1. 48, c).16 Specific points of comparison are
the dumpy figure, the sloping shoulders, and the low-drooping right sleeve of the colobium.
He also compares the box-pleat treatment of the edge of the toga in front of the left arm on
our statue with the stylization of the lower edge of the tunic on the Boethius diptych.
The position held by the subject of our statue must remain uncertain. The only inscriptions
that survive in Athens on bases of statues of Roman officials of the fourth and fifth centuries17
honor either the proconsulsof Achaea or praefectipraetorioof Illyricum, both officials who seem
to have worn the chlamys. Absence of the scepter is thought to preclude identification of a
statue as a consul or vir consularis.xsKollwitz remarksthat the praefectusurbi is the only other
official who wears the toga.19It seems unlikely that the praefectusurbi either of Rome or of
Constantinoplewould have had a statue set up in Athens, and it is perhaps safer to assume that
our torso comes from the portrait of an unidentified senator.
The position in which our statue stood seems to have affected its composition. Theunfinished
state of the back and the properright side make it clear that the portrait was intended to occupy
a place in which only the front and the left side were visible. Interest was added to the left side
by the ornamental treatment of the toga edge in front of the left arm and by the curve of
drapery caught up from the back by the left hand. The folds on the right side were correspond-
ingly diminished in importance.
This is probably the latest Athenian statue preserved from antiquity. It is pleasant to find
in it, despite its formulaic stiffness, a spark of Hellenic ingenuity, still ready to rework any
formula to fit the needs of the moment.
1 For a
description of the garments see R. Delbriick, Die Consulardiptychen(Studien zur spatantikenKunstgeschichte,II.
Berlin and Leipzig, 1929), pp. 43-51.
CATALOGUE 81
2
Cf. J. Kollwitz, OstrnmischePlastik der theodosianischenZeit (Studien zur spatantiken Kunstgeschichte,XII. Berlin,
1941), p. 85 and note 1 for the significance of the scepter; ibid., pls. 24, 27, 31 for visible traces of it.
3 For an example in which the belt is hidden by such a pouch, though a much shorter one, cf. Kollwitz,
op. cit., p. 84,
no. 4 (this part of the clothing is not visible, however, in the views published ibid., pls. 21-22).
4 Cf. Lillian M. Wilson, The Roman Toga (Baltimore, 1924), figs. 66-67, facing p. 106.
5 See Delbriick, op. cit., p. 49, b, fig. 18; Wilson, op. cit., fig. 62; and Kollwitz, op. cit., pls. 16, 20-22, 24-28, 31, 41.
6 Op. cit., pp. 94-115, especially figs. 69, 74.
7
Delbriick, op. cit., p. 45; earlier bibliography, ibid., pp. 44f., note 129.
8 An
early form of this draping occurs on the male figure of the Annona sarcophagus in the Terme (Wilson, op. cit., fig. 54).
1 Cf. Kollwitz, op. cit., p. 91.
10 Cf. Kollwitz, op. cit., p1s. 25-26; Wilson, op. cit., figs. 63, 68 A.
11Op. cit., p. 112.
12
Ibid., pl. 41; Rodenwaldt, Kunst der Antike2 (1930), pl. 685. Athens, N.M. no. 423.
13 1.G.,
II2, 4226.
14
Op. cit., no. 13, pp. 89, 100, pl. 19, 2; Johnson, Corinth, IX, no. 325.
15Kollwitz, op. cit., no. 15, pp. 90, 112, pl. 33; Johnson, Corinth,IX, no. 327.
16
Delbrick, Die Consulardiptychen,no. 7 R; Kollwitz, op. cit., p. 112.
17 1.G., II, 4222: end of 4th century, Rufius Festus, proconsulAchaiae; 4223: A.D. 379-395, Theodoros, proconsulAchaiae;
4224: beginning of 5th century, Herculius, praefectuspraetorioIllyrici; 4225: the same Herculius; 4226: ca. A.D. 440, Probus,
conjectured to be praefectuspraetorioIllyrici.
18
Kollwitz, op. cit., p. 85 and note 1.
19 Loc. cit.
6
OBSERVATIONS ON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE
IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
I
THE ROMANIZATION OF GREEK PORTRAITS
To the question, "What is Roman in Roman portraits ?" the answermost frequently given is
that Roman portraits are realistic, as contrasted with Greek portraits, which are idealistic.
For those who are conscious of an existing difference and desire only a convenient way of
referringto it, this is a good enough answer. For those, on the other hand, who need to be led
to the recognition of a difference, there is more value in Michalowski'silluminating statement
that a Roman portrait is a document, whereas a Greek portrait is an analysis.' Roman realism
in portraiture consists in accepting and recording as of equal value all that has befallen the in-
dividual man in his existence in time. The sum of these things is the "real" man, and the
faithful representation of such marks of his history as are recorded in his physical appearance
constitutes his portrait in the realistic sense.2 Greek idealism tends to abstract the man from
time in concept even before it is confronted with the necessity of representing him in the
timeless medium of the art of portraiture. Its aim is to represent the permanent character of
the man through the selection of those traits and attributes that best express his nature, his
talents and his position in society. In the purely physical as well as in the psychological aspects
of portrait-making the Greek artist is more analytical than the Roman. For the Greek the
inner organic structure, intellectually understood, is always the necessary frameworkon which
any portrait must be built.3 To the Roman this inner structure is of minor importance as com-
pared with the surface marks that give the impression he wishes to convey.
This documentary surface realism in Roman portraiture seems to be an expression of the
developed Roman character and outlook on life as we meet it in the history of Republican
Rome; it is not descendedfrom any primitive artistic tendencies inherent in the race nor is it to
be derived in the material sense from primitive techniques born on Italian soil. Native Italian
portraiture, insofar as its nature can be understood, seems to employ a non-naturalistic geo-
metrical frameworkfor its portraits and to select for emphasis only a few of the most expressive
elements of the face.4 This can scarcely be termed a realistic portraiturein any sense; anyone
1 Dglos, XIII, p. 30. This is a basic difference in Greek and Roman
ways of thought, not only in their approaches to art.
In a comparison of the histories of Thucydides and Polybios with those of Livy and Tacitus the same distinction appears
with perhaps even more clarity. The Greekhistorian seeks to explain the underlying causes of events; the Roman to reproduce
as vividly as possible the significant moments of the past.
2 Cf. Schweitzer, pp. 11-19. Cf. M. Bieber in A.J.A., LV, 1951, pp. 439ff.
8 Cf. Michalowski, D6los, XIII, p. 29.
* Cf. Zadoks-Jitta, Ancestral Portraiture in Rome, p. 6. G. Kaschnitz-Weinberg, R6m. Mitt., XLI, 1926, pp. 133-211
(summarized pp. 201 ff.) calls the basis of Etruscan portraiture (from which he does not distinguish other Italic, p. 133,
note 1) "cubistic" in contrast to the organic basis of Greek portraiture. He regards the "stereometric" style of late anti-
quity as a resurgence of the native cubistic conception, p. 158.
THE ROMANIZATIONOF GREEK PORTRAITS 83
comparing such a portrait with an organically conceived Greek work would unhesitatingly
proclaim the latter the more realistic of the two. Roman portraits, however, retain none of the
abstract geometrical basis of the native Italic works. If Roman portraiture inherits anything
from the Italic, it is its lack of logic, the absence of a necessary connection between internal
structure and external effect. What structural basis there is in Roman portraits is primarily
Greek. The Romans were not a marble-workingpeople, and it was from the Greeks that they
first learned the habit and the techniques of carving sculpture in marble. Since Roman por-
traiture really began to exist as an art only at the time when these lessons were being learned,
it was inevitable that some of the contemporary, late Hellenistic sculptural tradition should
go into the make-up of the first Roman portraits, whatever may have been the nationality
of the actual sculptors who carved them.5 Thus there was an Hellenic underlay present in the
Roman tradition from its inception; an overlay, in the form of conscious classicism, seems to
have recurred periodically in waves of varying intensity throughout the history of Roman
portraiture." In the intervals between the classicizing phases realism continued to reassert
itself, the periods of strong realism being the Republican, the Flavian and the period from
Maximinus to Decius.7The powerful classicizing movements came first in the Augustan period,
again in the Hadrianic period and finally in the time of Constantine. There seems to have been a
brief classical reaction under Gallienuswhich lasted only for a short time.
Besides the interplay of Roman realism and classicism, three factors might affect the degree
to which Hellenic or Roman elements would predominate in a portrait in the Roman period.
These are: (1) the place where the portrait is made, (2) the nationality of the artist, and (3) the
nationality of the subject. It is due largely, I believe, to the lack of general agreement among
scholars as to the relative importance of these three factors that disputes concerningthe extent
of the dependence of Roman portraiture on Greek can still be carried on with so much vigor.
If we say, for example, that Roman art is really Greek because the artists who produced it
have Greek names,"we are implying that factor (2) is all-important and that (1) is negligible.9
If we go on to say that the reason Roman portraits look different from Greek portraits is that
the Roman subjects had different physiognomies,10we are rating (3) also very high. A more
balancedview is that of Vessberg,who believes that portrait sculpture was originally introduced
into Rome by Greek immigrants but was gradually modified by its new environment and the
new types of faces to be represented." The actual amount of influence exerted by each of these
factors cannot be decided a priori, however; it must be determined experimentally by observa-
tion of as many actual instances as possible in which some or all of the factors are known. For this
5 The question of the nationality of the "Roman" sculptors is one that is currently attracting a considerable amount of
attention. Cf. G. M. A. Richter, "Who Made the Roman Portrait Statues?", Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society, XCV, 1951, pp. 184-191, and ThreeCritical Periods, pp. 53-64; J. M. C. Toynbee, CollectionLatomus,VI, pp. 17-33;
Michalowski, B.C.H., LXX, 1946, p. 386, note 2. Whether one emphasizes the continuity of tradition from Greek to Roman
art, as Miss Richter does, or the essential differences between the two, as Michalowski and Schweitzer do, it seems agreed
that most of the sculptors of Roman works who signed their names were Greeks.
8 See especially Rodenwaldt, Arch. Anz., 1931, cols. 319ff.
7 Cf.
L'Orange, Studien, pp. 3f.
s Cf. above, note 5.
9 As against this point of view, the importance of factor (1) is stressed by Kaschnitz-Weinberg, Rdm. Mitt., XLI, 1926,
p. 211: "Mag auch die friihkaiserliche Zeit noch so sehr griechischen Hinden ihr kiinstlerisches Gewand verdanken, so bleibt
doch noch etwas, was neben der Pers6nlichkeit des ausiibenden Kiinstlers wirkt und ihn beeinflult: das Land, in dem er
lebt, die Rasse, fiir die und in deren Gemeinschaft er arbeitet, kurz die Umgebung, die ihn langsam, aber sicher verwandelt,
besonders wenn er, wie der Grieche dieser Zeit, Neues eigentlich nicht mehr zu sagen hat."
10 Richter, Three Critical Periods, p. 60: "But then, why, we may ask, is a Greek head so easily distinguishable from a
Roman one? For the obvious reason, I suggest, that the physiognomies of the sitters were different."
11 Vessberg, p. 174.
6*
84 OBSERVATIONS ON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
purpose the portraits published here are documents of some interest, for we can be sure in
almost every case that the origin of the portrait is local and that the artist was a Greek. We
cannot always be sure whether the subject was a Roman or a Greek,but we are safe in assuming
that the majority of the persons represented are Greeks. In the one case where the identity
of the subject is given in an inscription he is shown to be a native Athenian, though his phy-
siognomy might equally well be that of a Roman.12
The portraitsfrom the Agora excavations which are published here are, of course, only a tiny
fraction of the total mass of Athenian Roman portraits, and Athens itself was only one of many
Greek centers of artistic production that went on producingafter the political control of Greece
had fallen into Roman hands. Yet even a mass of material that is quantitatively so insignificant
may suffice to point out certain concrete facts that affect some of the more basic assumptions
commonly made concerning Greek portraits in the Roman period. The purpose of the present
discussion is primarily to call attention to a few such facts. We cannot, without the risk of
producing more wrong assumptions, go much beyond the immediate conclusions offered by
the Agora portraits themselves, together with certain related portraits which, like them, were
found in Athens.
THE LATEREPUBLICANPERIOD
The first period of Roman portraiture, the Republican period of realism, is undoubtedly the
most important of all for the question of the relation of Roman portraiture to Greek, but the
time is not yet ripe for definite pronouncements concerning it. A solution of the problem can
come only as the result of a comparisonof Greekand Roman works of the period with reference
to a firmly established chronology. The first thoroughgoing attempt that has been made to
establish the chronology of portraiture in the first century B.C. on the Roman side, that of
B. Schweitzer,13 is so recent that one would preferto test it for a while against new and fortui-
tously accruedevidence before accepting it in its entirety as a basis for further conclusions. On
the Greek side hardly even a beginning has been made.14Before a serious chronology can be
established, all the material from all Greek sites that can be assigned to this period needs to be
gathered and subjected to a careful comparative study with a view to relating the pieces one
to another in an intelligible sequence that takes account both of general stylistic trends and of
local workshop practices. Here the Agora excavations can do no more than add to the mass
of material to be studied. The two portraits of the period, Nos. 3 and 4, are interesting because
they reflect two different, distinctly Roman styles. Unfortunately the circumstances of finding
offer not the slightest indication for the date of either.
In the head of a shaven priest, No. 3, the Roman concept of the realistic portrait, as ex-
emplified in such Republican portraits as the old man with covered head in the Vatican,'5 has
been accepted by the Greek artist and applied to a non-Roman subject. Though there are other
Greek portraits that reflect this Roman style,'6 in no other is the traditional Greek structural
basis of the portrait so far abandoned as in the Agora head. The only clue to its date is its general
12 See No. 25 above.
13
Schweitzer, pp. 142ff., chronology to chapters III-IV.
14 E. Buschor, Das hellenistische
Bildnis, is neither complete enough in his collection of material nor clear enough in his
enunciation of the stylistic principles on which he bases his chronology to fill this need.
16 Museo Chiaramonti,no. 135; Schweitzer, p. 73, D 7, figs. 2, 89, 96; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl.
137; Goldscheider, Roman
Portraits, pl. 1; A.B. 451-2.
16 On these portraits see above, pp. 13-14.
THE ROMANIZATIONOF GREEK PORTRAITS 85
similarity to a head from Corinth (P1.43, c) which must date from after the refoundation of the
city as a Roman colony at the order of Julius Caesarin 45 B.C.7 If one were to assume that the
Roman realistic style of the Republic was a natural product of the development of late Hel-
lenistic portraiture in Greece, one would expect such Roman works as the old man in the
Vatican to be contemporary with, or at any rate not much earlier than the Agora and Corinth
priests, since the Roman works show the perfection of a concept that has hitherto been only
imperfectly realized in Greece. Though we cannot enter here into the question of the dating of
the urban Roman works, so late a date for the "Old Romans" group would raise difficulties,for
it would mean inserting it between the portraits of Pompey, Cicero and Caesar and the early
portraits of Augustus. Thus the Agora priest, though it is itself undated, helps through its
relation to the less well preserved portrait in Corinth which has a definite terminus post quem
to demonstrate the priority of the urban Roman portrait over that of mainland Greece in the
realistic style of the late Republic.
In another way, too, our priest illustrates the relation of Greek realistic portraits of this
period to those of Rome itself. Though the portrait is constituted here, as in the Roman works,
of a complex of external marks, wrinkles, veins and bulges of the flesh, these elements are here
assembled in a much more calculated manner than in the Roman counterparts. Rather than
consulting directly the countenance of his model, the Greek sculptor seems to have been con-
sulting a concept in his own mind of how such things should be done. The origin of this concept
can have lain only in the Roman works themselves and in the demands of the Roman patrons
who commissioned work in Greece. In the Agora priest we have before us Roman realism in a
Greek translation, conscientiously literal but a translation nevertheless. Greek art has not yet
become one with Roman art, though the satisfaction of Roman taste has already become its
goal.
The portrait bust, No. 4, is valuable chiefly because it seems to be dependent on the Roman
style immediately following that from which the priest portrait is derived. It seems not to have
been a very effective work, and its qualities are again best explained on the assumption that the
development of portraiture in Greece at this time was following, not leading, that in Rome
itself. It would seem that in the middle years of the first century B.C. two opposite processes
were going on on the two sides of the Adriatic: at the same time that the Roman portrait was
being Hellenized the Greek portrait was being Romanized. These two processes did not, how-
ever, take the form of an equal exchange. The creative impulse, the need for expression which
demanded art as its medium, was now all on the Roman side, but there was no native tradition
of craftsmanshipto fill this need. It was therefore necessary to borrow from Greece, but there
was no need to borrow only from contemporaryGreece at a time when the Greek artists them-
selves admitted the superiority of their own past. Roman borrowingfrom Greek art in the first
century B.C. tended, in fact, to reverse the original stream of development, looking first to the
Hellenistic tradition for inspiration and turning later to the more remote but more admired
masters of the classical period.'s Greece at this time, on the other hand, was possessed of the
means but not the matter for continuing artistic production. She had a highly developed
language, but she had nothing left to say in it. The perfectly natural consequences of this state
of affairswere, first, that the best Greek artists should migrate to Rome where the best employ-
ment offered itself and, second, that those who remained behind in Greece should look for
17 See above, p. 14, note 12.
18
Cf. Schweitzer, pp. 79ff., 91ff.
86 OBSERVATIONS ON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
inspiration to the capital where the best work was being done. Though these cross-currents
cannot be mapped accurately so long as the chronology remains unsettled, it looks as though
the Greek development lagged a stage behind the Roman until almost the very end of the
century, when the triumphant spread of Augustan art throughout the Empire produced for the
first time an approximation to chronologicalunity. Thus we have seen that the linear realistic
style which flourished in Rome considerably before the middle of the century did not find its
fullest expression in Greece until the forties or later, and we must assume that the modified,
smoother style of our No. 4 is later still. The Hellenistic tradition died hard, and the first half
of the century seems to have been devoted largely to its final throes. Such Roman influences as
can be detected in that period are only skin-deep.19In view of the late date of Republican
realism in Greece, it seems unlikely that the partially Hellenized Roman style represented by
the portraits of Pompey, Ciceroand Caesarcan have had much effect in Greecebefore the time
of Augustus, when the gap between Greek and Roman art was already beginning to close.
Some idea of the relation of contemporary Greek portraiture to Augustan classicism may be
formed from a very brief survey of several portraits of Augustus himself which were found and
presumably made in Greek cities. They are:
1. Athens. Head found in the Roman Agora (Stavropoulos, Ah-rTiov,1930-1, TTapapT-rWa, p. 9,
fig. 8; Hekler, Arch. Anz., 1935, cols. 399f., figs. 3-4).
2. Corinth. Toga statue from the Julian Basilica (P1. 43,f; Swift, A.J.A., XXV, 1921, pp.
142ff., pls. 5-7; Johnson, Corinth,IX, p. 71, no. 134).
3. Saloniki. Heroic statue (Arch.Anz., 1940, col. 261, figs. 71-73),
4. Delos. Colossalhead (Michalowski,Delos, XIII, pl. 20).
5. Samos. Head in Vathy (Wiegand, Ath. Mitt., XXV, 1900, pp. 166f., no. 37).
6. Samos. Head in Tigani (P1.43, g; Crome,Das Bildnis Vergils,figs. 54-55).
7. Pergamon. Head now in Istanbul (Michalowski,B.C.H., LXX, 1946, pl. 20).
8. Cos. Head in Antiquarium (L. Laurenzi, Clara Rhodos,IX, 1938, p. 63, fig. 41).
All these portraits except for the head in Vathy, which has the hair arrangementof Brendel's
Type B,20 and the colossal head in Delos, which is too much destroyed to permit identification
of the type, show the special arrangementof locks over the forehead that is characteristicof the
Prima Porta Type (P1.43, e).21 The Vathy head is presumably earlier and the Delos head may
be so.
An easily recognizable and almost constant feature of Augustan classicism is the treatment
of the eyebrows as simple arrises formed by the sharp intersection of planes, without rounding
or plastic indication of the hairs. This deliberate renunciation of the illusion of flesh harks back
19E.g. the portrait of a man in the Athens National Museum, no. 320 (A.B. 885-6; Lawrence, Later GreekSculpture, pl.
59 b; Schweitzer, fig. 81), which Schweitzer dates to the second quarter of the century. The head from the Theater Quarter
in Delos (Michalowski,Delos, XIII, pls. 23-24) may belong also to the second quarter of the century, though Michalowski,
op. cit., p. 63, places it between 90 and 70 B.C.
20 Brendel,
Ikonographiedes Kaisers Augustus, pp. 31 ff.
21 The
type is generally dated between 20 and 10 B.C. because of the representation on the cuirass of the recovery of the
standards from the Parthians in 20 B.C. Brendel, op. cit., p. 61, dates the types that precede the Prima Porta type 30-15
B.C., so that for him the latter must come after 15. L. Curtius, Rim. Mitt., LV, 1940, p. 58, on the other hand, sees the
developed Prima Porta type of head first in the As of the Mintmaster C. Asinius Gallus of 22 B.C. and in three-quarter view
in the imago clipeata of the denarius of 16 B.C.
THE ROMANIZATIONOF GREEK PORTRAITS 87
to the fifth century B.C., and it is one of the features that give Julio-Claudianportraits their
look of cool clarity. Especially in portraits of Augustus himself the eyebrows tend to be straight
and level, their curvature being less than that of the upper eyelid. Such eyebrows are found in
all the Roman portraits of Augustus, even those assigned to the earliest types. In the portrait
from Pergamon and the two from Samos the eyebrowsinstead of being level curve sharply down
at the outer ends following the strong curve of the upper eyelids. In this the artists are following
Hellenistic tradition, and the characteristically Hellenistic "pathetic" look of these East Greek
heads is due in part to this feature. Looking at these three heads one cannot escape the feeling
that Augustan classicism was an alien plant that was slow to take root on the eastern side of
the Aegean.
The three mainland portraits are closer to Roman style. That is to say, they are as cold as
any Roman works; none of the Hellenistic life and passion survives in them. On the other hand,
they can scarcely be said to be more truly classicistic than the Roman works of which they are
feeble reflections. In the PrimaPorta statue classicismis a formal style employed to lend dignity
and universality to a work whose strength lies in character. The mainland Greek portraits we
are considering lack strength and character altogether. In them classicism becomes an empty
formula. Again one has the impression that Augustan classicism was not a living tradition in
Greece. It seems to have been as alien, as essentially Roman in its values, as the realism that
preceded it. The forms were accepted more readily in places like Athens and Corinthwhere the
Roman influence was dominant (Corinthwas actually a Roman colony and the sculptors who
made her marble statues may well have come from Athens) than they were farther east where
the great centers of Hellenistic art had been, but the ideas were not so easily assimilated even
here. Nevertheless, though Greek Augustan art seems to have produced no portraits of real
grandeur, some quite respectable and attractive work was done. The portrait head of a young
prince from the Royal Gardensin Athens, identified as Gaius Caesar,22is as graceful and charm-
ing as the Corinthianportrait of the same prince is stodgy.23 The bust from the Athenian Agora,
No. 7, which is so much influenced by the portraits of Augustus that it is difficult to be sure
that it is not Augustus, is a lively, energetic portrait; it escapes dullness in spite of obvious
reflections of classicism in the carving of the eyebrows and the mouth and the very stiff treat-
ment of the hair.
II
ATHENIAN PORTRAITS IN THE STYLE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
By the end at least of the Augustan period Roman style in portraitureseems to have attained
approximate unity throughout the Empire. From here on until the third century when a new
kind of gap between East and West begins to open up, the development of portraiturein Greece
apparently followed that of Rome with little deviation except for a slight lag in time. Greece
had become an artistic province of the Roman Empire, and so far as we can ascertain no
significant new developments were initiated there. The quality of Athenian portraits seems to
have gone up and down with the economic prosperity of the city; the flourishingHadrianic and
early Antonine periods produced some works that may be ranked with or even above the
22 Poulsen, Rbmische Privatportrtts und Prinzenbildnisse, p. 39, pl. 37, and Hekler, Arch. Anz., 1935, col. 403, figs. 5-6.
28 E. H. Swift, A.J.A., XXV, 1921, pl. 10; F. P. Johnson, Corinth, IX, p. 72, no. 135.
88 OBSERVATIONSON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
contemporary products of Rome herself,' but by the early third century Athenian portraiture
had sunk again to the level of mere competence. No contemporary Athenian portraits can
comparewith the Caracallain Berlin2or the Philip in the Vatican.3
In the course of the first and second centuries Roman portraitureswung from classicism back
to realism and then back again to classicism, and each time the Greeks followed along behind.
In Greece as in Rome Flavian portraits often show a strong resemblance to types from the
Republican period. A portrait from the Agora, No. 18, is a particularly good example of this.
Not only did Greece not remain an island of classicism during the times when realism domi-
nated in Roman portraiture; even after the advent of Hadrianic classicism she was slow to
abandon altogether the old Flavian types. In the herm portrait of Moiragenes, No. 25, the
carved pupils and engraved irises of the eyes show that the work must belong to the time of
Hadrian, and yet the general facial type is derived from the realistic Roman style of the late
Flavian age. We find it in its earlier stages in two Agora portraits, Nos. 18 and 19, the first
probably dating from the time of Nerva and the second from that of Trajan.
It is true, however, that certain classicizing types occur in Greece independently of any
general classicism in the period to which they belong. The choice of these types is motivated
not so much by artistic taste as by the desire to emphasize the continuity of certain institutions
and to show their modern exponents as bearers of the great traditions of the past. Thus the
principal classical types that occur are ephebes and philosophers.The ephebes combine portrait
elements with imitation of classical athlete types; the result is a series of generalized portraits
that are less differentiatedfrom one another than straight portraits would be.4 The first century
portrait, No. 14, from the Agora shows this influence, but such portraits are more frequent
later, especially in the third century when Athens' cult of her own past went to extravagant
lengths. The philosopher portraits sometimes imitate the cut of the hair and beard of some
famous philosophertype of the classical or Hellenistic period, and it is probably fair to assume
that a man would choose the type of one of the founders or great men of the philosophical
school to which he himself belonged.5It may be, however, that in many cases a more general
type was created, in which a beard, long hair, and a thoughtful brow marked the subject as a
philosopherwithout attaching him specifically to any school.6We can only guess at the extent
to which philosophers of Roman times actually assimilated their everyday appearance to that
of their great models. Probably the length of hair and beard was genuine, and the portraitist
saw to it that its arrangement conformed to the desired type. I do not know of any such
classicized philosopherportraits definitely assignable to the first century after Christ,but about
the time of Hadrian, when beards were generally worn again and when philosophy, along with
all things Hellenic, became the height of fashion, such types began to appear,' and they con-
1
E.g. the Hadrian from the Olympieion (P1. 45) and the early Antonine portrait from the Theater of Dionysos, the so-
called "Christ" (Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 261; A.B. 301-2).
2
Bltimel, RbmischeBildnisse, R 96, pls. 59-60; C.A.H., Plates, V, pl. 168 b.
3 Hekler, op. cit., pl. 293.
SSee above, No. 47 and note 4.
1 Cf. the
portrait of a kosmetes, Graindor, Cosmvtes,no. 27, p. 363, fig. 28, which reflects the portraits of Antisthenes and
leads Graindor to the conclusion that the man represented is a Cynic, and the portrait from Delphi, Poulsen, B.C.H., LII,
1928, pls. 14-16, which shows a resemblance to the portraits of Plato, especially in the cut of the beard, and so may represent
a follower of the Platonic School. The latter portrait is early Antonine (cf. L'Orange, Studien, p. 6 f., note 2), not Gallienian
as Poulsen suggested.
6 The portrait of Herodes Atticus in the Louvre, A.B. 1196-7; Paribeni,
pl. 310; Schefold, Bildnisse, p. 181, no. 2; Graindor,
HgrodeAtticus, p. 132, figs. 7-8, may serve as an example. Cf. Richter, Three Critical Periods, pp. 60f.
7 Cf. the portrait of the Platonist Theon of Smyrna, whose portrait Schefold dates, probably rightly, to the Hadrianic
period (Schefold, op. cit., p. 181, no. 3; Richter, op. cit., p. 60, fig. 137).
ATHENIAN PORTRAITS IN THE STYLE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 89
tinued in use even in the third century after the emperors and the general Roman public had
gone back to short-cut hair and stubble beards.8 As in the case of the ephebes, the classical
philosopher types seem to have been particularly popular in the third century.9 It is probable
that by that time the philosophical guise was affected by many who had little if any real claim
to it.
These classicizing portraits have perhaps attracted more than their proper share of attention
in general estimates of Greek portraiture in Roman times.'0 They are so obviously Greek that
they make the problem of distinguishing Greek style from Roman appear simpler than it
actually is. Yet they perhaps do point the way to the recognition of a real difference which
exists elsewherein a form much less easy to perceive. The willingness to submergethe individu-
ality of the subject in a general type that appears here is something quite un-Roman, and it
may be that the basic attitude of the Greeks toward portraiture was never so thoroughly
Romanized as were the forms of the portraits themselves. It may even be that a number of
Greek portraits which appear at first glance to be highly individual appear so only because they
employ Roman types. The Agora portraits support this suggestion in two respects. First, the
series formed by Nos. 18, 19 and 25, all showing the same fairly simple compositionalframework
in spite of the marked differencesin handling of the surface, suggests that the artist still con-
ceived his portrait within the limits of a simple basic type which he then altered to fit the
individual subject. Second, the fact that several private portraits, including Nos. 18 and 19,
seem to have been influenced by the physiognomy of the reigning emperor implies a further
willingness to modify the features of the sitter in conformity with a preconceived notion of
what was desirable in a portrait. Besides No. 18, which shows affinities with the portraits of
Nerva, and No. 19, which has modified the type in the direction of those of Trajan, we may
mention No. 37, with its obvious reflections of the portraits of Caracalla,No. 38, which bears
some resemblanceto those of Elagabalus, and perhaps, if it does not really represent Augustus
himself, No. 7, which is so bewilderingly similar to the portraits of that emperor.
When we couple with this tendency of Greek private portraits to reflect current imperial
types the greaterfreedom with which the Greeksoften treated the imperialportraits themselves,
it is not surprisingthat there are many cases of disputed identity among Greek portraits of the
Imperial period. The natural reluctance of scholars to permit a portrait to remain anonymous
once it has attracted their interest has resulted in a number of identifications which find their
way into the literature of imperial portraits only to be rejected again by more critical students
of iconography."
Yet another kind of difference, slight and subtle yet all-pervading, exists between Roman
portraits made in Athens and those made in Rome itself, even at the time when Greece was
following Rome most closely. The surface of the marble seems somehow more alive than in the
average Roman work, and the carving of the details less hard and mechanical. In this lies the
one direct link with the great age of Greek sculpture: the marble is still Pentelic and the hand
that holds the chisel is still Athenian. The tradition, though degenerate, is unbroken, and the
confidence born of long familiarity with his tools and his material seems to have given the
average Athenian sculptor a freedom that his Roman counterpart lacked. So, though the best
Athenian portraits of the Roman period rarely compare with the best that Rome herself
produced, the mediocre ones are never quite so dull as those that now fill the Roman museums.
A hastily made Athenian portrait seems impressionistic rather than crude. Since it is creative
power rather than technical skill that the Athenian artist now lacks, those portraits which are
most ambitious in scale are often least effective,12and, conversely, it is with quite minor works,
such as the head of a woman from a relief, No. 13, that we sometimes feel closest to the Hellenic
past.
12 No. 17 is an extreme
example. In No. 28 the excellence of the technique so far exceeds the general effectiveness of the
portrait that one feels disappointed with the work in spite of the fact that it is well above average in general quality.
III
Though none of the Agora portraits that can be assigned to the third century after Christ
comes from a closely datable context, the Agora excavations have established one point which
affects materially the existing chronology of late Athenian portraiture and, with it, our present
picture of Greece's role in the transition to Late Classical art.' As a result of their own con-
sistently late dating of Greek works that seem to stand on the threshold to Late Classical art,
scholars have tended fo assume that Greek sculptors even in the fourth century of our era
retained to a much greater degree than did their Roman and Eastern contemporaries the
interest in and ability to render plastic form in which Greek art had always excelled.2 The
revision of the chronology that is required by the new archaeologicalevidence shows that such
is not the case.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
EVIDENCE
Prominent among the works supposed to illustrate this survival of plasticity is the head of a
young man (P1. 46, a), found along with the portraits of the kosmetai in the filling of the
"Valerian Wall" and commonly dated by students of sculpture to the reign of Constantine.3
1 The term "Late Classical" is here used in the sense in which it is used
by Rodenwaldt in his chapter entitled "The
Transition to Late-Classical Art" in C.A.H., XII, pp. 544-570 (see p. 544, note 2 and pp. 561 ff. for a definition of the term,
which translates the frequently used German term "spitantike," and a statement of the essential qualities of Late Classical
art). His chapter covers the development of Roman art from the time of Septimius Severus through that of Constantine
(193-324), but Rodenwaldt dates the "transition" proper to the years A.D. 275-300, the accession of Diocletian (285) being
taken as the beginning of the Late Classical (ibid., p. 562). The precursors of the Late Classical, however, begin around A.D.
222, when the early third century style which continues the Antonine tradition (I should like to coin the term "Sub-Antonine"
for this period) is replaced by a radically different style (cf. ibid., pp. 545 and 563).
2 The
prevalent view is eloquently expressed by K. Michalowski, B.C.H., LXX, 1946, p. 390: "Le fait incontestable,
attest6 par les monuments, c'est qu'en cette p6riode, au d6clin de 1'empireromain, la Graceencore une fois excella dans l'art,
avec cet ensemble particulier de valeurs qui distingue la production plastique n6e sur son sol de celle qui se d6veloppe au m~me
moment tant en Occident qu'en Orient ..... Nous poss6dons plusieurs totes-portraits de l'6poque de Constantin le Grand,
provenant de Grace, dont le style contraste au plus haut point avec le froid classicisme, inspir des moddles august6ens,
qui regnait ailleurs dans l'art de ce temps."
3 Graindor,Cosmetes,no. 33, pp. 378f., pl. 26; L'Orange, Studien, p. 57, cat. no. 85, figs. 161, 162.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITSOF THE THIRD CENTURYAND AFTER 91
So late a dating has been considered possible because scholars have continued to believe that
the "ValerianWall" was built in the fifteenth century and so can provide no useful terminus
ante quem for the ancient sculpture that was found built into its core.4 Now, however, the
excavations of the Athenian Agora, through which the wall runs, have shown that it was built
around A.D. 280, to fortify the city of Athens against the event of another incursion such as
that of the Heruli which had laid waste the Agora in the year 267.5
Only if it could be shown that the section of the wall in which the portraits were found was
not part of the original structure but a later repair would it be possible to assign a later date to
any of the heads. All the evidence, however, is against such an assumption. The construction
of the wall in which the portraits and the ephebic inscriptions were found, as described in the
original excavation report,is the same as that of the "ValerianWall" in general: the rectangular
blocks, including the stelai and the herm shafts, were used to form the outer facings of the wall,
and the irregularly shaped pieces, including the portrait heads, were thrown into the filling."
The heads of the kosmetai are for the most part excellently preserved (many actually have their
noses intact), and it looks very much as though the heads had been struck off from their herms
for the specific purpose of using the latter in the facing of the wall. The "Constantinian"head
is among the best preserved of all.
None of the inscriptions from this part of the wall has been dated later than 267. It would
seem, indeed, that the ephebic training in Athens lasted only for a very short time after the
Herulian invasion. The latest known Athenian ephebic inscription (found not in the wall, but
in two wells in the Agora) shows letter forms very similar to those of inscriptions dated just
before267 and is probably to be dated around 275.7 There is no proof that all the portrait heads
found in the filling of the wall at St. Demetrios Katephoris represent kosmetai or ephebes, but
since no inscriptions belonging to other types of portraits were found with them, there is every
probability that they do. Hence even if the wall could not be dated it would seem unlikely that
any of these heads could be so late as A.D. 325, fifty years later than the latest Athenian
ephebic inscription.
Once it is clear that none of the portraits of kosmetai can be later than around 280 we have
next to decide what is the actual date of the latest piece. Certainlyit is likely that very few of
the portraits are to be placed after 267. In the period of insecurity and economic distress that
followed upon the barbarian invasion portrait sculpture seems to have become a luxury that
the private citizen could rarely afford.8The base belonging to a portrait of the historian Dexip-
1
For the fullest statement of this view, accepted by Judeich, Topographie2,p. 165, see G. Guidi, "Il muro Valeriano a
S. Demetrio Katiphori e la questione del Diogeneion," Annuario, IV-V, 1921-22, pp. 33-54.
5 Cf. T. L. Shear, Hesperia, IV, 1935, pp. 332 ff., where the latest coin found in the footing-trench is said to be one of
Probus (A.D. 276-282), and Hesperia, VII, 1938, p. 332, where a hoard of sixteen coins, the latest being one of Probus, is
described as found in a layer of mortar immediately under the wall. On the latter cf. also W. B. Dinsmoor, Hesperia, IX, 1940,
p. 52, note 121. Eugene Vanderpool informs me that he believes the wall was constructed around 280. Graindorbelieved that
the wall was built in the 15th century (op. cit., p. 241, note 4). L'Orange does not state his beliefs, but must also have followed
this view.
6
1861,pp. 18f.
Ipai-rw•K•,
7 Agora Inv. I 231. J. Oliver, Hesperia,
II, 1933, pp. 505f., no. 17; republished with additional fragments, Hesperia, XI,
1942, pp. 71f., no. 37. The provenience of the new fragments is given, through a misprint, as Section Pi. Actually they are
from Section Gamma on the west side of the Agora adjacent to Section Delta in which the first fragments were found. Pro-
fessor Oliver informs me that he still dates this inscription around 275 and that it is undoubtedly the latest Athenian ephebic
inscription preserved.
8 See
Day, EconomicHistory, pp. 258f., for a summary of the economic situation following the invasion of the Heruli. There
are a few inscriptions honoring Diocletian and Maximianus (I.G., II, 3421, 3422, 5202) and L'Orangehas identified a portrait
in the Athens National Museum as Diocletian (Studien, p. 103, cat. no. 53, figs. 98, 99), but I know of no inscription from a
portrait of a private person belonging to the last quarter of the third century or the beginning of the fourth.
92 OBSERVATIONSON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
pos, which was set up by his sons, apparently soon after the completion of his Chronikain
A.D. 269/70, represents one of the latest examples known to us.9 The area of the Agora itself
seems to have lain in ruins for many years following its destruction at the hands of the Heruli
and it is unlikely that any statues were set up there during this period. This considerationhas
been invoked by H. A. Thompson in favor of a pre-Herulian date for the Agora portrait of a
young man, No. 51, which was found built into a mill-race of the fifth century on the east side
of the Agora.1oIt has never been determined where the portraits of the kosmetai originally
stood. The commonest supposition is that they were set up in the gymnasium known as the
Diogeneion, since some of the ephebic lists found at St. Demetrios Katephoris indicate that
copies were to be set up in the Diogeneion. On this basis the Diogeneion has been tentatively
located in the vicinity of St. Demetrios." G. Guidi, on the other hand, argues that portraits
and ephebe lists were set up in the Agora itself,12but since his theory remains only an hypo-
thesis, it cannot be proved that the portraits of the kosmetai stood in a part of the city that was
wrecked in 267, and the date of their inclusion in the "Valerian Wall" is the only definite
terminusantequemfor their erection.13
There seems to be no doubt that the invasion, though ultimately repelled by the Greeks
under the leadership of Dexippos, dealt a mortal blow to the moderate prosperity that Athens
had enjoyed in the mid third century. The cessation of the export of Attic sarcophagi'4and the
disappearance of sculptured grave stelai'5 at about this time show to what extent sculptural
output was affected.'"The question that immediately concerns us is: was the effect instantan-
eous or delayed? Certain bits of evidence suggest that several years passed before the worst
effects were felt. First among these is the ephebic list mentioned above, which must be post-
Herulian in any case and may be as late as 275.1' The close similarity of the rather pretentious
style of engravingto that which we find in the list to be dated in 262/318sshows that pre-Herulian
standards had not yet collapsed. In the case of sculpture we have the Dexippos base to show
that at least one portrait was set up at private expense soon after the invasion. It will be seen
below that the style of the latest ephebe head from the "Valerian Wall" and that of certain
heads in the "philosopher"group discussed below (P1.47, a and b) would best fit a date roughly
parallel to that of the latest ephebic inscription.'9 These heads, which do not yet show the
decline in technique that becomes apparent in Athenian works of the last quarter of the third
century, are probably the work of some of the better sculptors of the pre-invasion period who
survived the competition for the few commissionsthat were available in the years that followed.
g I.G., 112, 3669; Graindor,Album, no. 105, p. 72, pl. 83.
10 See above, 66.
p.
11
Judeich, Topographie2.p. 379, calls this location "quite uncertain."
12
Op. cit., above, note 4.
13None of the portraits shows signs of burning, and in general their excellent state of preservation suggests that they
stood intact until they were decapitated for inclusion in the wall.
14 Rodenwaldt, Jahrb., XLV, 1930, p. 186.
15 A.
Miihsam, Die attischenGrabreliefsin r6mischerZeit, p. 57. Riemann, Kerameikos,II, p. 50 postulates a Post- Gallienian
date for two grave-stelai: Kerameikos P 190 (ibid., no. 46, pl. 15) and Conze, no. 2042, pl. 444, on the basis of comparison with
portraits, but the portrait of a priest from Eleusis (P1. 46,e) which he cites is little, if at all, later than the time of Gallienus
(see below, pp. 101-102) and his tetrarchic parallels are not really convincing. There may have been a few post-Herulian grave-
stelai made in Athens, but these last few were doubtless made in the years immediately following the invasion.
"1 Some sculptors' workshops were actually destroyed in the sack: cf. the workshop in the Library of Pantainos mentioned
above, p. 49. The industrial district to the southwest of the Agora, destroyed by the Heruli and not rebuilt until late in the
fourth century (R. S. Young, Hesperia, XX, 1951, p. 284) doubtless contained a number of sculptors' workshops.
17 See
above, note 7.
18
1.G., II, 2245; Graindor,Album, no. 104, p. 70, pl. 82; formerly dated either 262/3 or 266/7, now dated by Notopoulos
(Hesperia, XVIII, 1949, p. 41) in 262/3.
19 See below, pp. 99-105.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITSOF THE THIRD CENTURY AND AFTER 93
exploiting fully the expressive possibilities of the Roman style.35 The Agora head of a shaven
priest, No. 43, is unusual in this respect and must be the work of a sculptor who had closer
contact with Rome than had most of his contemporaries. G 20, the kosmetes of 238/9, shows
only traces of the new style. It has the deep irregularwrinkles in the forehead. The eyebrows
are heavily emphasizedand the narrow eyes looking up from under them are more like those of
Maximinus or Philip than like those of earlier portraits. Close to the two "brothers" G 20 and
G 21 but showing more of contemporary style and less of classicism is the flat-faced old man
G 19. In the form and distribution of the wrinkles, in the shape and carving of the eyes, and
even in the direction of the glance, there is a close resemblance to portraits of Maximinus
Thrax.36The fact that the pattern of the face is all linear and is spread out in the front plane
while the side plane is utterly neglected recalls the Agora priest No. 43, but the intensity of the
Agora head is lacking in the big, flabby face of the kosmetes; here the classicistic and Roman
elements neutralize one another, and the portrait as a whole becomes ineffectual. The careless
carving of the ears seems to be typical of the period. From now on in Athenian work the
tendency is to neglect the ears, representing them with the simplified outline that we see here
and with a minimum of interior modelling. The surface of the face is rasped as in G 20 and G 21.
The truculent kosmetes G 23, which Graindorplaces in the time of Philip (244-249), fits such
a date very well. The hair and beard represent a final simplification of the long-haired types we
have been studying. There is no drill-work and the chisel-strokes are coarse and heavy. The
scowling face with its narrow eyes and deep frown-wrinklesmakes an effective realistic portrait
in spite of the fact that this is not a careful piece of work. The pupils of the eyes already have
the crescent form that increases in popularity as the fourth century approaches.37 The face is
again rasped; we seem to be in a period in which smoothed faces are, for Athens, the exception
rather than the rule.
For the later part of this realistic period in third century portraitureL'Orangehas underlined
the essential features with admirableclarity: "Besonders die spatesten Portrats, diejenigen des
Decius, zeigen wie sich in den Einzelformen die lebendig-organische Spannung 16st, wiihrend
zugleich die ausdrucksgebendenKonturen gestrafft werden, s. z.B. die Augen, die ihre plastische
W8lbung fast verloren haben, wahrend die Konturen ihrer Raindereinen sehr akzentuierten
Schnitt erhalten, oder die Stirnfurchen, die trotz der kraftigen Betonung ihrer Konturen
skizzenhaft grob gezeichnet und nachlassig aus der Muskulatur herausgeholt sind."38 The
kosmetes G 1539 looks like an illustration of this sentence. The enormouseyes are astoundingly
flat, even more so when one sees the actual stone than they appear to be in photographs. The
short beard that grows down on the neck is in the fashion of the times, though the hair is in
tumbled curls, much longer than a Roman of the day would have worn it. The side view shows
the same features we have noticed in the preceding portraits, the carelessly carved clam-shell
35Cf. ibid., p. 10.
31 Cf. the bust in the
Capitoline Museum, Goldscheider,Roman Portraits, pl. 83; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 291 a.
37 Crescent pupils vary in shape from what is really a semicircle, as here, to a simple U-shaped line. Destined to become
the regular form in the fourth century, the crescent pupil appears only sporadically in the first half of the third along with
the plain circular pupils which represent the alternative simplification of the cardioid form. The two forms appear together
on the Attic Achilles Sarcophagus in the Capitoline Museum where the male portrait (L'Orange,Studien, fig. 12) has circular
pupils and the female head (Goldscheider, Roman Portraits, pl. 89) has the crescent type. The crescent appears in various
provincial portraits even in the second century: cf. the portrait of an elderly woman from Leptis Magna, R. Bartoccini, Le
Termedi Lepcis (Bergamo, 1929), p. 174, figs. 190-193, with Hadrianic coiffure (here the pupils are cut by means of a row of
small drill-holesforming a semicircle, a proceduresometimes employed in the fourth century also) and a second-century double
herm from Gaul (Arch. Anz., 1930, col. 237, figs. 21-22).
38 Studien, p. 4.
39Also published in L'Orange, Studien, cat. no. 6, fig. 18.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITSOF THE THIRD CENTURY AND AFTER 97
ears and the general neglect of the side plane of the face. A portrait from the Agora, No. 44, has
the same flat eyes with the sharp outline of the lids emphasized by undercutting. The hair is
short, indicated by little curved incisions into a roughenedsurface, the Athenian version of the
current Roman convention. The striking similarity of the Agora head, both in physiognomy
and in technique, to the ephebe portrait G 22 (P1.46, b) makes it clear that L'Orangeerred in
dating the latter to the time of Alexander Severus. The two portraits must have issued from the
same workshop at about the same time. The need for such a redating of the ephebe is shown
also by its relation to the kosmetes G 24, which looks like a somewhat later product of the same
shop. This and the Agora head of a negro, No. 45, have bulging eyes with heavy upper lids that
seem to overhang the face. A somewhat similar effect may be seen in the bronze statue in New
York (P1.46, c) called TrebonianusGallus(251-253),40as well as in a bronze head in Florence,41
perhaps a portrait of the same emperor.A number of Greek portraits of mid-century and after
show this formation of the eyes. The two replicas of a single portrait (probably an Athenian
priest) for which L'Orange has hazarded the identification Longinus seem to show that it
continued into the time of Gallienus (P1.46, d).42 We find it even in the portrait of a small boy
No. 46, from the Agora.
The period of Gallienus has long served as a dumping-groundfor late Roman portraits that
could not easily be placed elsewhere. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, the
Gallienian"renaissance,"the deliberaterecultivation of classical Hellenic culture in the fields of
philosophy and letters, leads one to expect a similar reaction in the field of art, and the por-
traits of the Emperor himself seem to give evidence that one actually took place.43There has
been disagreement, however, as to the extent of the renaissance, and a drastic overestimation
of the revivifying effects of such a revolution of taste on the purely technical aspects of portrait-
making has caused some scholars to place in this period works made as much as a hundred
years earlier.44Second, and this adds to the confusion caused by the first, the hair and beard
style adopted by Gallienus differs only in length from certain earlier modes, e.g. that of
Maximinus Thrax,45and we have seen that the Greeks tended to let their hair and beards grow
longer than the fashion demanded. Thus we may occasionally find a seemingly Gallienian
coiffure on a non-Gallienian portrait. Third, once such heterogeneous works have been attri-
buted to the period, the situation tends to aggravate itself as more and more pieces are collected
around the original misattributions. We must be on guard, therefore, and must try, at least, to
40 Richter, Roman Portraits, no. 109.
41 Goldscheider,Roman Portraits, p1s. 98-99; Bovini, Mon. Ant., XXXIX, 1943, col. 195, figs. 9-10.
42
L'Orange, Studien, cat. nos. 11 and 12, figs. 25-27, 29.
43 See especially Alf1ldi, 25 Jahre R6misch-Germanische Kommission, pp. 33 ff.
44 The most notable example is the Antonine long-haired portrait in the Athens National Museumwhich has been variously
called "Rhoimetalkes," "Herodes Atticus," "Polemon" and "Christ"and which Alf6ldi, op. cit., p. 46, identifies as Gallienus
himself (ibid., pls. II 1, III 2, IV 1, V 1; Hekler, Bildniskunst, pl. 261). F. Poulsen, B.C.H., LII, 1928, pp. 245-255, dates
"around 270" a clearly Antonine philosopher portrait in Delphi to which he tentatively attaches the name "Plotinus"
because of the Platonic shape of the subject's beard. The much-discussed head from Miletopolis in Berlin (Bliimel, Rd-
mische Bildnisse, R 113, pl. 73; Alf6ldi, op. cit., pls. III 1, and V 2) is brought in both by Alfoldi and by Poulsen as a
companion for their would-be Gallienians, though its eastern style makes it difficult to compare with Athenian works.
L'Orange, Studien, p. 6, note 2, refutes Poulsen's theory of a revival of drill-technique in the time of Gallienus.
45 Maximinus Thrax is the first to permit the short beard to grow on the neck as well as on the face. When his beard style
is worn a little longer by a curly-beardedperson, the effect is like that of Gallienus'sbeard.
7
98 OBSERVATIONSON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
find some logical relationship between the various Athenian works that seem to have been
made in the time of Gallienus and the decade immediately following.
In No. 49, the burnt and sadly weathered portrait of an aged man crowned with strophion
and wreath, the Agora excavations have added a new member to a group of portraits that has
contributed perhaps even more than the ephebe from the "ValerianWall" to the legend of the
67 See above, note 54.
68Cf. L'Orange, Studien, figs. 146-150, 157, 158, 163-166; Delbriick, SpdtantikeKaiserportrdts,pls. 27-39; Richter, Roman
Portraits, no. 110.
69 See below, p. 101.
CoL'Orange, Studien, cat. no. 56. See above, No. 50, note 1.
el Studien, pp. 16 ff.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITS OF THE THIRD CENTURY AND AFTER 101
superior plasticity of late Roman portraiture in Greece. Rodenwaldt, who was the first to call
attention to this group as such, listed seven pieces.62Later discoverieshave brought the number
up to ten.
I. P1.47, c. In Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 582. From the Asklepieionat Epidauros.Rodenwaldt,
76 Wp., pls. 1-2; L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 65, fig. 114.
II. In Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 581. From the Serpentje Wall on the south slope of the
Acropolis. Rodenwaldt, 76 Wp., pl. 3; L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 64.
III. P1. 47, a. In Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 580. Provenience not recorded. Pentelic marble.
Rodenwaldt, 76 Wp., pl. 4; L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 62.
IV. In Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 3411. Proveniencenot recorded.Pentelic marble. Rodenwaldt,
76 Wp., fig. 1; L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 63.
V. In Delphi Museum,no. 4040. Found in Delphi south of the temple. Rodenwaldt, 76 Wp.,
no. V; L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 60, figs. 111 and 113.
VI. In Athens, Nat. Mus. no. 360. From Delphi. Rodenwaldt, 76 Wp., pl. 5; L'Orange,
Studien, cat. no. 59, figs. 110 and 112.
VII. Pl. 46, e. In Eleusis Museum.From the sanctuary. Rodenwaldt, 76 Wp., fig. 2; L'Orange,
Studien, cat. no. 58, figs. 108 and 109; Hekler, Die Antike, XVI, 1940, pp. 135ff., fig. 23.
VIII. In Rome, the Vatican Magazines.Kaschnitz-Weinberg,no. 679. Provenience unknown.
Described by Kaschnitz-Weinberg as being of medium-grained white marble and
undoubtedly the product of an Attic workshop. L'Orange,Studien, cat. no. 61, fig. 115.
IX. P1. 31. In Athens, Agora excavations Inv. S 659, above, No. 49. From a mixed deposit
containing sherds of the Turkishperiod.
X. P1.47, b. In Corinth. Inv. 2415. Exact provenience unknown. Brought in from outside
the excavations in 1938.63
The persons represented are elderly men with lank hair falling over their foreheads and with
beards of medium length. The group seems to divide into two basic types, of which the first
shows a close stylistic relation to the "Longinus" portrait (P1.46, d), i.e. to the late Gallienian
"tense style," while the other is closer to the ephebe portrait, G 33 (Pl. 46, a), representingthe
post-Gallienian (?) floruit of the "dry style." There can be no doubt that the Agora and
Eleusis heads (Nos. IX and VII) represent a single person and that this is not the same person
as the one represented in the Epidauros portrait. The type is characterized by the marked
asymmetry of the features and by the tense, worried expression of the face. L'Orange has
pointed out the resemblance of the Eleusis head to Late Gallienian works, especially to the
"Longinus." Regarding the somewhat longer beard and the locks brushed forward onto the
forehead as slightly later features, he dates the piece in the seventies."4The burned condition
of the Agora head suggests (though certainty is impossible, in view of the late mixed context in
which the head was found) that this particular piece was made before 267 and sufferedin the
barbarian invasion of that year. In any case, the arrangement of the side front hair in back-
62 76 Wp., pp. 3-7. Rodenwaldt dated the portraits to the second half of the fourth century. L'Orange (Studien, pp. 40f.
and discussions of individual pieces under cat. nos. 58-65) recognizes that this date is too late. He regards the group rather as
a developmental series that continues the tradition of the third century down into the fourth. The dating proposed below is
somewhat earlier still.
63
I am grateful to Edward Capps, Jr. for permission to use photographs of this portrait which will be published by him in
his forthcoming volume on the sculpture from the Corinth excavations of the American School of Classical Studies (Corinth,
IX, ii, no. 95).
64Studien, p. 41.
8*
102 OBSERVATIONSON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
swept waves behind the temples is definitely Gallienianin contrast to the forward-sweptstyle
that predominatesin the seventies.65
Of the remaining eight pieces, five: Nos. I, III, IV, VIII and X seem clearly to represent a
single person by means of a single type, which we call, for the sake of convenience, the Epidauros
type. Such differencesas exist between these five are differencesof technique only. This portrait
is characterized by symmetrical and ornamental treatment of the features, the hair and the
beard. The eyebrows form prominent ridges, smoothly arched, and the wrinkles across the fore-
head are parallel grooves following the curve of the eyebrows. The hair is brushed forward
above the ears. In the back it lies in long, curving strands against the nape of the neck. The
beard, a little longer than that of the Eleusis type, is brushed forwardand down in great sweep-
ing curves over the cheeks, and the ends fan out into a decorative row of curls along the jawline
and under the chin. The ends of the mustache curve in below the mouth, and the beard on the
chin is all brushed toward the center.
The two fragmentaryheads in Athens, Nos. III (P1.47, a) and IV, are certainly products of a
single workshop, as is shown by the identical treatment of the hair, in small, overlapping locks
that give the appearance of pointed scales. The Vatican head, No. VIII, is close to the one in
Corinth. Both show a shallow, sketchy treatment of the hair, and the modelling of the faces is
similar. In both the center of the forehead rises in a sort of boss. In the Epidauros head, the
execution is altogether different.Harsh engraved lines have replaced the more plastic modelling
of the features and the sketchy treatment of the hair in the other examples. Iconographically,
however, the portrait does not deviate from the basic type in any important respect. The
arrangementof the locks over the forehead, including the fork above the right eye, the symme-
trical wrinkles of the brow, the projecting arched eyebrows, the forward sweep of the beard on
the sides, the symmetrical enframement of the mouth, and the ornamental rows of curls in
which the beard terminates are all in perfect conformity with the type. The head must have
been copied from one of the others, but by a differenthand and at a different time.
For the more plastic, and so presumably earlier, representatives of the Epidauros type our
closest Athenian parallel is the ephebe from the "Valerian Wall," G 33. We may compare,
despite the difference in the ages of the subjects, the decorative symmetry of the face as a
whole, the forward sweep of the hair over the ears and the slight parting of the foreheadhair
above the right eye. The precise, dry carving of the strands of the beard in No. III (P1. 47, a) is
comparable to that of the hair on the ephebe, though the hair of No. III is more sketchily
rendered. The combination of straight, forward-brushedhair with a curly beard is to be found
on the post-Gallienian sarcophagusin Naples mentioned above.66
In the head from Epidauros (P1.47,c) everything has become linear. Coarse engraved lines
are used not only for the strands of the beard but also for the locks of hair and even for the out-
lining and inner drawing of the eyes. One is reminded of the technique used in late Roman
plastic vases (P1.47, d)67where the technique of drawing the details by means of gouged lines is
a natural one. Since similar effects, especially in the outlining of the eyes, are to be found in
works of the last quarter of the century,68 it seems likely that the Epidauros head is a some-
what later replica of the type than the heads from Athens and Corinth.
60 See above, p. 99.
'1 See above, note 53.
67 See above, No. 51, note 4.
8 Cf. L'Orange, Studien, figs. 98-103. A very poorly preserved head of a small boy from the Agora, Inv. S 450, shows
similar outlining of the eyeball.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITS OF THE THIRD CENTURY AND AFTER 103
The portrait from the Serpentje Wall in Athens, No. II, is not an exact replica of the Epi-
dauros type, but may well be a simplified version of it. The lines in the forehead, the swing of
the eyebrows, the curved nose with its drooping tip, the sunken cheeks and the mouth are
essentially the same as in the other heads. So are the curve of the beard on the sides and the
curls along the jawline. It is in the hair that the most drastic simplificationshave taken place:
the front fringe is pulled together to a single point in the center of the forehead, and on the
sides a single series of parallellines runs from front to back, curving over the tops of the ears and
all the way down to the nape of the neck, as though the hair were a hank of yarn draped over
the head.
The two heads from Delphi, Nos. V and VI, seem to be related to the other two types already
described without being exact replicas. Vertical worry-wrinklesbetween the eyebrows, brows
that do not arch but sag, unsymmetrically placed eyes, and a beard without formal pattern link
No. VI with the Eleusis and Agora heads. The most marked deviation is in the front hair, which
instead of being brushed back toward the ears on either side comes forward above them as in
the Epidauros type. The locks over the forehead also fail to conform to the pattern of the type.
The hair on the nape of the neck is thin and straight as in the Eleusis head, but there is no
wreath. If the Delphi head is a wreathless version of a wreathed type, the lack of connection
between the front and back hair is thus accounted for.
The other head from Delphi, No. V, might be a watered-downversion of the Epidauros type.
The slight cock of the head to the right, the high trapezoidalforehead,the high-archedeyebrows,
the sentimental expression (here rendered slightly ridiculous by the inept carving of the eyes),
the symmetrical sweep of the mustache and beard around the mouth and the ornamental curls
in which the beard terminates all belong to the type. Deviations are the absence of the wave in
the hair on the back of the neck and of the forward-sweepingcurve of the beard over the cheeks.
Both these heads have a lifeless, crude workmanshipthat sets them apart from other members
of the group. They would seem to be late versions made after the decline in technique that
followed the economic decline of late third century Athens became strongly felt, or else pro-
vincial versions made by inferior local sculptors. In any case, they must be later than the
Athenian originals of these types, for the changes in the arrangement of the hair are such as
would accord with later fashions.69
Various attempts have been made to identify these portraits. The bearded type, the age of
the men and their concentrated expressions led Rodenwaldt to the conclusion that these were
philosophers,and the fact that several of them were found in sanctuaries suggested to him that
they were Neo-Platonists, philosophers who made themselves champions of the old pagan
sanctuaries in their final struggle against Christianity. L'Orangefavors the identification of the
men as Neo-Platonists, though his raising of Rodenwaldt's chronology70presents a different set
of possible subjects. For the Epidauros type he suggests Iamblichos, "the central figure of the
Hellenistic philosophy of the fourth century.""' More recently Hekler has suggested that the
Eleusis head representsNikagoras, a sophist of the third century, a descendant of Plutarch and
a sacred herald of the Eleusinian Mysteries.72This identification cannot be proved, though it
69 I.e., the elimination of the Gallienian back-swept waves in front of the ears that characterizes the Eleusis type and of the
forward sweep of the beard in the Epidauros type. In general, portraits of the late third century show the hair all brushed
forward and the beard all brushed back (if it is long enough to show direction).
70See above, note 62.
71Studien, p. 43.
72 Die Antike, XVI, 1940, pp. 135f.
104 OBSERVATIONSON ATHENIAN PORTRAIT STYLE IN THE ROMAN PERIOD
was suggested by the actual existence of the base of a statue of Nikagoras in the sanctuary at
Eleusis where the head was found.3" Whether or not it is right, however, it is the right sort of
identification. The priestly insignia of the Agora replica make it likely that the subject of this
portrait was a member of one of the Athenian noble families who held priesthoods at Athens as
well as at Eleusis. Nikagoras must, however, have lived to a very ripe old age if it is he who is
represented,for those who have worked out the genealogy of his family suggest a birth-date for
him ca. 175-180.14
Our dating of the Epidauros type in the immediately post-Gallienian period precludes the
identification with Iamblichos proposed by L'Orange. The number of replicas (five certain plus
one probable and one possible) seems at first glance an astonishing number for a portrait of
someone who was certainly not an emperoror a member of the imperial family. Yet a glance at
the inscriptions of the surviving Greek statue-bases of Roman times serves to show that it was
by no means unusual for a prominent citizen to have more than one portrait (whether statue or
herm) erected to him, even though his renown may never have spread much beyond his own
city.75Various important offices and priesthoods held and various benefactions performed for
the city at different times might serve as the occasions for erecting new statues, sometimes at
the expense of the state and sometimes with the permission of the state but at the expense of
some member of the subject's family. There is no reason to think that a new type would be
created on each of these occasions. The activities of Herodes Atticus76are sufficient proof that
those who filled the Greek towns and countryside with statues and herms in the Roman period
took no pains to spare the passerby the boredom of encountering the same face over and over
again. A good type, once established, would doubtless be repeated with only those variations
required by the occasion: the addition or subtraction of wreaths or the adjustments requiredto
make a statue-portrait into a herm-portrait.
In view of the rapid decline of sculpture in the last third of the third century, the striking
differencein technique between the plastic and linear versions of the portrait need not represent
a very great lapse of time. It is perhaps not due entirely to chance that the face of No. II, the
head from the Serpentje Wall, looks somewhat older than those of the others. The sculptor may
have been able, without altering the basic type, to suggest the advancing age of his subject.
There is no real evidence for the identification of this most-copied of late Athenian portraits.
If the two Delphi portraits are actually versions of our Eleusis and Epidauros types, the
coincidence of their occurring together at Delphi may argue some connection between them,
but as to what this might be we have as yet no clue. In the absence of other indications for the
Epidauros type, one is tempted to wonderwhether it may not preservefor us the features of the
historian Dexippos.77A wealthy and influential Athenian citizen and a member of the priestly
clan of the Kerykes, he combined civil and military leadership with his literary profession. He
claims credit for the expulsion of the barbariansfrom Greece, and the inscription on the base
73 .G., I, 3814.
74 0. Schissel, "Die Familie des Minukianos," Klio, XXI, 1927, p. 367. This means that he must have lived a very long
time in any case if it is true, as Hekler suggests, op. cit., p. 136, that he survived by about two decades his friend Philostratos
(who died between 244 and 249).
75 There are, for example, three inscriptions surviving from portraits of the historian Dexippos (I.G.,
I2, 3669-3671) and
three of his father (I.G., I, 3666-3668). The appearance of a copy of our portrait at Epidauros may indicate that the subject
held a priesthood there, as prominent Athenians sometimes did: cf. Q. Alleius Epiktetos, an archon of Athens in the second
century, Oliver, Hesperia, XI, 1942, p. 86, note 32 (where the reading of I.G., IV2, 691 is corrected and Alleius is shown to
have been an Athenian, not an Epidaurian). In the fourth century Ploutarchos who was &pX at Athens and lEpcxa-r6oS
at Epidauros dedicated two statuettes of Asklepios in the sanctuary (I.G., IV2, 436, 437). ep•;s
76 See
above, under No. 26.
7 For the career of
Dexippos see Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa, R.E., s.v.
ATHENIAN PORTRAITSOF THE THIRD CENTURY AND AFTER 105
of a statue erected to him about 27078 calls him "famed throughout Hellas" for his historical
writings. Such an identification has, however, even less real evidence in its favor than has that
of the Eleusis type as Nikagoras, for none of the replicas can be shown to have the same pro-
venience as any of the inscriptions of Dexippos.
THELASTQUARTER
OFTHETHIRDCENTURY
It is not surprisingthat the last quarter of the third century is poorly representedamong the
Agora portraits, for the Agora itself lay in ruins at this time and no portraits were set up there.
No. 50, with which we have compared a head in the Athens National Museum (P1l.47, e) dated
by L'Orangeto the early Tetrarchicperiod,79representsthe continuation of what we called the
"tense style" in works of the preceding quarter-century.These portraits are the final offshoots
of the school from which the priest portraits (P1. 46, d) and our No. 49 originated in the late
Gallienianperiod. Their late date is apparent in the hair style and in the crudertechnique and
harsh use of incised lines.
The head of a middle-aged man with stubble beard, No. 52, is certainly later, very near the
end of the century if not after, but it differsfrom No. 50 also in the fact that it seems to stem
from the "dry style" of the seventies. In keeping with the fashion of the times it shows a
stippled beardrenderedwith direction-lessstrokes and a sharp off-setting of the hair mass from
the neck in back. The technical inferiority of the piece shows up particularlyin the carving of
the eyebrows and nose, which may be compared with that in the poorer of the two "philo-
sopher" portraits from Delphi, above, p. 101 No. V.
The youth with the stippled beard, No. 51, shows considerably greater proficiency in the
modelling of the face, which, except for the simplified treatment of the forehead, bears a
certain resemblanceto that of the ephebe G 33.80 The manner of stippling the beard, however,
and the sharp line that divides the hair from the face, seem to place the work at the end of the
century. If H. A. Thompson is right in considering this head a pre-Herulian work,s81these
features must be regardedas less reliable evidence for dating than has been hitherto supposed.
The three ill-preserved pieces which can be attributed to the fourth century, Nos. 53-55,
form a pathetic epilogue to the story of late Athenian portraitureas read in the finds from the
Agora excavations. In their present condition these pieces tell us little about the quality of
Athenian work during this period except that the carving is very flat and the forms are rigidly
stylized. The male head, No. 53, with its flat brow and blank eyes appears to reflect Constan-
tinian classicism in a particularly cold and empty form. The female head No. 55 with the
slender oval face seems almost archaic in the simplicity of its planes. Here we are left with a
In fifth century Athens, a university town whose students and visitors continued to bring her
a measure of prosperity and of contact with the outside world, portraits were still being made.
A few of these survive, but no portrait head of this century has as yet come to light in the area
of the Agora. The headless statue of a magistrate, No. 64 above, is our only representative of
the period. Its shallow carving and block-like form, preserving the shape of the stone from
which it was carved, suggest that it belongs late in the century when even this last brief flower-
ing of Athenian prosperity had begun to wither away.
CONCORDANCE OF CATALOGUE AND INVENTORY NUMBERS
Como Herakleion
Museo Giovio: Museum:
head of a lady of the house of Constantine:70 head of a woman, from Gortyn, Julio-Claudian: 223
110 INDEX OF MUSEUMS
London Piraeus
British Museum: Museum:
Hadrian,cuirass-statuefrom Cyrene,1466: 732 Trajan,colossalhead: 28
bust of a little boy with "Horuslock", 1935: 558
head of a man from Cyprus, 1st century B.C., Pompeii
1879: 15 Museum:
Livia, statue from the Villa of the Mysteries:23
Malta
Rome
Museodel Rabato:
Antonia Minor(?), fragmentof a statue: 24 Museo Capitolino:
Decius, bust, Stanza degli Imperatori,70: 574
Naples Domitia, bust, Stanza degli Imperatori,25: 27
MuseoNazionale: Elagabalus,head, Sala delle Colombe,55: 51
Aeschines,statue, 6018: 766,78 Maximinus Thrax, Stanza degli Imperatori, 62:
Hadrian,cuirass-bust, 6075: 375 572, 9636
Herodotos,single herm, 6146: 102 Probus,head, Salone, 66: 68
Herodotosand Thucydides,doubleherm,6239: 102 Theonof Smyrna,bust, Stanzadei Filosofi,25: 887
M. Nonius Balbus, statue, 6167: 769 sarcophagus, Achilles, Stanze terrene a dritta,
NorbanusSorex,bronzehead, 4991: 13, 15 and 161 III, 1: 60, 9637
Viciria,statue, 6168: 17 statue of MarsUltor, Atrio, 40: 749
bust of an elderlyman, Trajanic,6182: 31 Palazzo dei Conservatori:
bust of a little boy, 3rd century,Mon.are., 32: 553
sarcophagus,3rd quarterof 3rd century: 99, 102
two statues of magistrates,Late Roman, Galleria
New York 66 and 67: 79
MetropolitanMuseumof Art: Forum of Trajan:
Augustus (2), bust: P1. 43,d, 18 Nerva, fragmentof colossalportrait:29
Flaccilla (?), head: P1. 48,a, 70, 71 Lateran:
Herodotos, herm: P1. 43,a, 102 bust of a man from the Tomb of the Haterii: 29
Trebonianus Gallus, bronze statue: P1. 46,c, 97 sarcophagus, "Plotinus": 58
bust of a man, bronze, 1st century B.C.: 15-16 statue of Sophocles: 766
Museo Nazionale delle Terme:
Nikosia Julia Domna, head: 461
Museum: Lucius Verus, head, 58561: 40
SeptimiusSeverus,bronzestatue: 402 Nero, head, 618: 284
Sabina, two portraits: 375
Olympia head of a charioteer, Trajanic: 873
Museum: sarcophagus, Annona, 2nd half of 3rd century,
Faustina the Younger, statue: P1. 44,b, 44-45 40799: 81, 99
INDEX OF MUSEUMS 111
.:bi
EP.
:;
~~~~"~
:?C.'?I".,..,I.*
r..
??' . . . .
.,.:':•; . ..
•.,•
... -.•:.•. . ..? .-
•:. ?. - ,
i .
?
?.• .....
: .
-'.•.- :•.','... .~?? ?~
-_... ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ?? :
!• ...~C :
.•, ? ,•:.-• •:•
.o
.,. A:.
•:•i•-. .~... ..
N
...
.'
....
* I . .
. . .. ..
..
,,?r
, . .
o;??
.r
1.
PLATE 2
i. •,a
.:.•,
;L
.r .?
., ~a~
',.•~Ss~
2.
?: .
... ?
:: i.:? :,
?:: ..
.wi
.i
'~*
;Y?t i'r -i'"
,
.j
dW,.
?4-e
.........
5.
WOW-~
ILI:
j:.-
.-*bL
.
?.1N
!r '
r?In
o. ,
...
3.
PLATE 4
:'VA.
•. , .
o..--
.* ?''; ?.' h .
...
? .....
?
?:?. ,.i r? .•. .
........... :'":,....
.,--
. . ........
....... .... .
il?Si! ... .. i:?.
.. ,-:,.••
.
..
' ? ' ?
t; ?: ;
'?... ? "? ;
?,• . :. .•
?II L:F
"." .;~~ ;:"?
',
.
? J?- .l?:~ .. ~
"' ;, '•'i~
;"
•' •'
:••
?~~ ?~~~~~?
?'
?.."
•i
~ ~~ ~~~ ;?i
"
"
"
• ..' " ,.
'•? •'" . . .,-•
: ..a... '"•:. .• : :,,
• . .,5 -t.
"
i. , • :.,: .:
.
4.
All
.. ...
.
......
? . ..,.i.N6
::?:
.
..
F,
. ?. 'i
:'
.. .
..~
?ii~?P
?_;~n ?
i ;??r~
o.
''
~dF~t~'s??
r.. ???
i*?'~5?~
?r
PLATE 5
. : . .
?; ?:: . , . :i . .
. ..
''m
?.'. ..
o.
-;.. ? ?
..
.
.,
...i
1;
.. '''' ..
?
, .
o
?
...
:
..I.~.........
?
.r:.I'i.
.":. ~. ??-???????
...
? i- .. ? ?-
'
:: i !:;
7.
.
i?
q!~
7.
PLATE 7
:
' .?
"•X,
,•? ? ..
.-
8.
?
?
~~ ~ ~ '
~ ~
. .. .. . ? :
.;. .: .. ?.
• : :: .
?? " .
-. .:, . .•., . '
. .
' .
" ". .
?....i:•;: • ? ...
,
"k .. . "... ?
.
.? .-•,
..:wl
• i•
•,, !•,
.,. . .... ?'..,, ., ..;i.
•;•!i;•i• ••;:• i~i~li~ii~i
" !,•"
•;:!•-;•.• ~:•!ir• "..~
:::•" "~
?:. •.;:!.i
"
?~~~ ;..... ; "-
? i. V •••ii-i.::i.:,..
: •:.•!•i:,•.:i : -• ;'.
. a ?-? • ?_• •
- '" : " ?."i.
"= i.• .-7•.• - :, , .
i
? " • ";"•.• ;;
?'.. ;
. . ,.••" i;.!.•-
9.
PLATE 8
.
.. ,?.: .,o:
•~ ~.??
? ,•_.:
-
?,• .-.. .......:,.i:,•.
..._,
..~`
..' .??
n:
,I;..:.......
'?.i l":?
- -...i::.",-.,.h~ ?
. .
?
"
. ...,
•• " " i." " :
":?
".•.'
:" , ".:.""
"• .
.
:.
.?
..?;. :. . .
• • •..•' U:i:i:i•!..
..: i i! ! .. .
. .. ..
"":
.:•." :: .....
•i•:ii• •i :...''
:•-:•:::.•.
.
?: .? . . . . . _ .
..• ..:....
.. . .... • o,, .• -.
10.
..?
12.
PLATE 9
......
.I .:
4i.2 ..
:--..?"
:?:'~I~i:% ??? ? x? ..
5
.":[::'''?'~J
..
..ap,;~~~~. ? .
.
,.....? ~ :;"::~:-,I.. ? ~~.
..
U?....
?? •
.,
,...
,•:.
11.
PLATE 10
iy~?
... ,"
.::
.
..•.•
?• i,•.•
•,• -.:. •:.' ::
!•
? .t.
i '? i
..
:i;,
??: ?
,..?.
: i?.. . s",.?;.~
r
,-
?,,.'
b.
.; ?. C~~i :I ?
.•,
i:'.; E ? .
..':
....
"
"
? ,."
11.
?'
!i
i
.
| ?:
, ..,.:
- ;I
., ., .r
"~~~L
'•
""'•
?; .
;..a
..
r o
13.
PLATE 11
r-' ?-?E, j,
'' ~ i?
=- ?-fL
16; c~~*~ Y'
x
~?-,; ~?." ?.- t
. I?? ~. ?,
-
r
~':
.Z~ *"~;~~
?1. ?Ai
CP!
?-:
?I ri 4
i ?L?
.I; b
.u?i
:1 .
2~
ii
:rU:? -
arS~
,xlr r1?'i:
?L~C*
~t~s~b$F~i~ . ~q i(-
'?; a~? ~
C? ~i 'L
c?
:rl !t?l~y.
4
??? ,, *~Y?l~' i"~":~
I?iL'
14.
,.,
. ..
?ti*;i2"~r~
.--;o.,
..,,.
i1:r
.?i T
tQ 5
'iEa~
??? .•
i-
?
'r I,
?~
.e c
;1 .
; u~e~~~~c?
"., '''
.?
r
i
•'*'• r:i ~~ ?C~?r
'. ,
.t
r?
4? ,,7
1 1.: b~R
PLATE 12
:
...~: o?
~?
~ ?
.? ~~~ ....?i
.
•mT~i: '
"•~~~~e '
~~~~. ?" .. •:"
. "
••,:;•c: . . . "
?.
;?a ,.:••
..-i:•:o •..• •.....•+,..:: •
.
5
..,• ..:
; .:••::........ .. . ? "i:-...ii•
".•?,; ,.,i •=-......
?.• .,.....? ~~I
:-
. . , •! ,......
.:.,.... . - ::::•::i.
.,..•.
..l •!:-•: : ..::: ' ..
....?...'.
-
.
•.. : •: : ...
? :-.~?; .? . •i... ?
, . .? •
? ,. ? . ...: .' ,: .;
' :•?•':•"i :
" ? "
r:" " ! . .. .
."
•
. ?,.-? .. . .... . •,.; -
17.
........... -,?
.
ro
4. . ':
.
•
,j,
...... -e:
... ;.?:i:~
:::;•:i•
i?. *
:,:,•::'if
WI.
-
i, .....~
. .-.
?i -:
...
I'
...,jy
:? -?.T. 1'.~
?. .
.........?.
??I"
J~C~ .:7n;LC~L8~-r - -----~ac. si:;
';1
:~C~~2.
~r 1.
~?
??,.. ??L?i?I
c~ ? "Ilr' ~a~:,
"i""~~~~ ?-~
r ?.
~:????
.1?i4~E~; '~a~?
i,
I
I
r.
I
~l.b -4 11 I ~,~r:
*i
I~i~k~ F~P I . 1
i:R? - rcl ? ~u?~Y~a~i~L~i~
:?.
F
::
i~??
j L.
LT?.
.
r?a..
t'-
-?&
'i~iiF~
18.
.....
. .. ....
.. ....
?:
, ." ,::!
I:!•::
Wi
-; t.
'I....-,
NV... . ,3f.• .. . ...t :, , , " . ,. . .
...4,•,
?' -
??"
,,,.,•
?
....•,,,•..i
?. .
-nee. .0
.."...•.
r. ? dSP
-
...:
rL..•
,:'Ni~4. .::i
.$
'
";
..N. "
-
_ ,. .t
4,,•,i
. ,...
19.
A X
Frle
it: 47,
rA.
t i~f'I 1-k
..;~?L?i~~;p;i
T-??r
::_1?-;:?::?-
???
PLATE 16
? '
i ... -
?.? . .• .
v_?A
,. .. ,:~.-
..? :, -
•;•:hir t, .
. ???"
. •........
-''.:. •~,' '.- ; "'
'* ...'...
?zj" :"=• ,i~•,•-
i.,• .. •i:•.<.•.:>• I...?. •.
",- '?,:.C ••
v • ].L "•.
':•
"•.. ,. '..; : , . ... i::
r- J
::[- .
"
.
,,,; ..~t .
::
, ; -?'•"
.a ••
i~
.,.•
•:.
•:• ... •
"•. ;•
c...?~
'
,
i•!• "i
y?- r
<.•~~~
~ i
.. ..:. o. :
.
# {i ?. •''"' '''. ?• .: :""
:.! ?.., ..,. .. , ,, .•- . .. "
.,:#
-,. .. •.. • -,
-..'"•:i:"•
=-
•"
'
.. u ?? •'"•~!••" ' •:'...
"
:i::'
5
?
,
! .
... ,.:,.-;..
....
:.. • :
I". :!.:?r..
•::j)i;.".:
.•....
.. ? ..:'":
.. .. :.
•
:}•,--.:,:.'o:.:'
21. 22.
.:?
..?
t?
..p
*
..
... ...
....,..
. .
•a...? .
.".... .: ....
t.-
'i` ':•'E i
t4:..
?,.,
' ..
..'
~
.........•.•,
>-.•-.
........ ~ ~
,•.,•I ~':
.<...
<.._,,..... '-;.•,
..
?r.rJ..-i-:7• .F
'Y
:? "Y-
h?--
"•.
•:?'P.: .i..
;,
? ?'
C•....:.. ... -,;...?:::
'•..
,!?I -,.'.i .": '
*?'.:.~~
•i.~!: • z
,"i."."'.
.;5
1
; : "• :" .1
,, ,';? . -.17
,• .. '•..~~~ ... ..:i"'r....,i
:~ .......'
i''....
"}.••"• ?3
:y?f '•,.?? .•• ;:••.,;i....
,,--:,,,m '•?"•'-'
''
ic?i ..,?,i
.:i "
..
?" " L.' '
'':"'i.:•
25.
PLATE 18
'~' .'
. rCI
--:~ r * ~- I4' A
w"'
? .. .1
.
;-}: ,
. . ; , ., . ..
.Ao ::Y
-R? ?K .* .b
.. ??..,
:.e .....
.-:....;,?
o•,-
?
e _$I
H?
~
i..?? o c-
.
..?~,:
?? . ?
..?
AIc-~.
re.. , " i~
r,
26.
27.
. -?. N
_ -
41
I
•
.iki
. . .
29.
4e,
.
•
- ,,• . .-.-- .
-":... -
.
?.. ...
.....,.
28.
PLATE 20
,
. . .
."..' -lk,,t
.: . .
W-3 "...
,.
,• .
?, ..
.
...... . ,. ..
,, .." ?
:?I ::
•;•
A*C-
l~g? .1.!:
-....
k "
•
IF:~ '
•
40 -
,
...
? r
•,.~~1 . .
30.
1. ? ?? ??. ?? .
". .?;i:
.:
: :
.j; .. .
"*
? :.??7 .j?. . . . . . ..
:,:.ii••.
: :,, , ii
fi'
I ":
!::::.::..?
•
i .:. ...
, t/:..?
?
... .. .,.
..,..
,
,.
...
31.
PLATE 21
~c~p'~ BLr',,
~7~u? ~
"?~ i
-.I
?r: .*
cg~l ~:Ir. ~'9%
s~ 1??? ~:?-:i~~,~:t
~r?? : :*i:
; P?!:~I ,? *?
?~~m~;Y~~'";?:L~erYi~IP_;d~e~F~-~
.,..
'
;Z~ro
????~i
?;`' ~?.?
R?:? ;?1 ra '1
a?ri F ; :i'
I L?
i ?*;
:(::- *
?r X'cr
:"r:y
I "';
i ...
:2.~:
::: ':?~?;
: i *+~ .P1.
*.+*''
:?:r:
?..?.
"Is '~
i
:
'' '`
'F
--?...,
:-?;? ?:QL?A-:~ 33.
?:.~u~h~ :T;
~? ?I??: ????;;
I??, I
.?:??: '1 .I~Z~;E~P~,~i~?~S~t;~;~rSi?~ti:
-q ~rr?~?:;
?~P~
le
k~; z :I:
1 ??: ';?
~t~,.a :L?1?Y?: ~1
?r~
Y?-
-?i~?:
C1 :C.?
1.
*?
~j~L~W~a~W'IL? ?'i
I
''i
irr ~~~H?7s'l~aY..?? ; ';ii.?r
.r;
:? ~?-'
''
PrB~-i-?
ii
33.
33.
""" •"...
.'
: ~ iih
:;i ?1I
':;•
*,.
F '•
7"'"'
:'
?(..!,?,?:,:?,.lr-'R;?".:.
:?
r?_
r::;nbiY'L~ .`"`2~ . -i
t?i
,I ??, iF?vYrfS''`~:l.'?1..
. .'
:;? ,,
Zi; ?? i h
..d ;2? I',
r(;~Y ?\ -:il~i?????.'? 9
??.,z C r,
~:: r 1
:I ,
.?, s :~
.?~s~ r- -"'"'
P r
;t
:tu !1 -:?
i: r
Fi
~*??'?! ?; r 7"- ?;
;? ??-ci F ~Iul~
i ir
i
?r ?~i~?;r~
-?U n?,;
?;: i; ?~
i
i; ,ir CY t~'
~5
2:
r
'i
ii ),i '' =?,?:.:
J. .,?
?: t :r;f'?~j
.E3
:???'.~?~
I*!c~
-i"
?~?.
ijial~Jrs~-- -u Ir C;?
;Y r i?:
i 'r t
u~ *
.'r?r:? ;S, ?~lg:'
;:r 'I ,, .b
f
?;~ 'i ?':????
4.~?1~:~YCI ~;
:+
3
",~ F:•
i?
-.~
'..,t "!
? ..• .:.
..... : ...
.....
., .. • •.
..:. .,...
...
;?: '! -
,'".i-• ;'!"i
'?-
v.
" ,i
i.?0 . . . . ..
? •.:'-, io
:.: .....-:.-,.,,, •
'
=.:.? . . . , •" ,
'f: ?~~~. " "
,;?i'.•;:
.. ..?:..?•
.t- ..C:, : .'"""
*
ck' ..- 4 :
" ':• '
i.+ . ,,,.;7k: ?,?, . .. '",
- •
... "'
•.~,,:
..
....I~i >.. .. ::?'. . ....: .... ...,
•
? ,• :I~.% lIlie?
, ....f:.
. .•. ,,-
? r
i • "
'c?~ .,,-a :?.. , r~c::
~?=W'Lw
'.'•.-"• ..
r.; ~
, i '''
. ?j..•,i•
.
?: "" :
. ;i
..?..; l:? '. '..- .. ... .
!• "'!•!
".•!>'.".:,!".:.:=•.~~~- id••!-':
36.
? . .
. ... .
'
?c~ .. . , . . .... .. •. .. .
1
P • ?.& .'• . • •?' ~~~~ ~" ~ ~ ~ ~
~~.~. • :..--..
. "3." •.' .
.... ....~ .
.:.-. . .. ...'. .. ?k qs,
• ,.,': ,,,.:•.
..,,• ..:s•
~~~~~~~~~~
.
!•'.. ?" ...
:::...::. ." ,.:....,.: .o .- ... !,•.
: ":
"" •:•••'. '•?•
" "
....
"~~
";',g
•"..
?
, "
?'P
. " •"•
.;
.:i...: . "_:
,••? •:;.
, :• .
•: '
j.•:•:3.7•
?6F
... ...k
o?
:.?
~,
•i
?
,?, . ,
.]
..
.:
i:?
..
? :.i.;•i::
?~~~ .i.: -ii:-:•!::•...,. _ :•"? ".sl ,P.? ...
.i-i.. 3.)?;
'~~~~~~?a
, ? :..~:..
?. ..,- ...J . •:
' •:::::"'. . .. :
...:: -:•].i
37.
" - .. : .... •
•• i :?: •'•' .
"•:I
TI:: :"5
"::: 2 ::7':• :?::.:
?.....
"I"', ..:
-"l'?r • .•?••.• eAIX i • •• -:
A:•. ?,•-,..:? .'i•..-:.:.-••o..• .?-.
..... -,,-.
t51 '.%
. .... •,. :. •
-"'' .,•:•.::•,,•,,•,
';'. '• .. .
14. 4??
.... :T" ,••
" .'• ...
r
?I "r " ?"?o
..:~I~'* -. ,
.".".. ..
T...
:"~~
?~.~O1i
.--?: k! ~ " . .: ~ ,.i:
':• .
.~ti ,?: .
i ,.•..•....•
I ....
T . :
. ;lTlr
?. ..i .• ,,:•..•c
." .....
?~~~" :.•:• . . "y •.
. .,
?
??.?:. .. . ?:. .. .::
..-•. ..:•?-
..,
?~1..•s
i :?
,
.,•-:.•-:: :•ii•.. ." I:,
:
..: ..
38.
..N
., ;.-V. '
?~.?
..;,. .. . .;):(•.• ,•L i. ..
?r~r - ;""" "' "'
. ...... "" ....
. . .,. .i .
..'-
?I
".".- ....• !-; ..."i ''•"i
;...•.•
,'~;?:
..:::I.
?:
:"i
: -??. ?:I
Af.,
i.,,
.'
. .
39.
PLATE 27
40. 42.
41.
47.
PLATE 29
45.
46.
PLATE 30
43.
44.
PLATE 31
48.
PLATE 32
50.
51.
52.
5
56.
56.
57. 58.
57. 58.
PLATE 40
63.
59. 61.
PLATE 41
..~.?.
•:•.••.• ...... • ";3
• 0
?;.
i~l??.
??;
c ???? %r
. .
.? . ~. :-
.
:- .:• C
; ? '..•',,•;;
. . ',1 ?
.
U6. I~
??????
?~'
sow-~j;,'s;~-~~,. ?
j
? .... W,, 4.
.T' ;li:
.. -. ::ill
:•ii •
US
U1"A _WM
-V -
?1w.' A
:i~i: U...
.
: :
•.•
.
... i
44S:•
r
. ??? •:ci:ii
?.
!•"::!''
.''; ,? .::.i: .. ..: : :•
::i *"
,9 ~?,
-:'h:;- :
,:i::•:: i:::i•,iii;':
. aL
i:!•'••' .....~- ii ....
........
?,;!!
;?•:•,• . . ::,?<j ,! ?
'??
;!ii C?l' •::":
It
:: i:i,: i, :;•
NA
twoi'
OSI'
C?-- fi'l
i::!•h.
,-
?: ?. ;i
"•
-.::
1
-?q •
, . .•
r
5?
?m 1: . :.:.:::,:::,.
i, .
., .. . .?* . .
r
,,.~ ? . r•..• ... :.• ,•t .,•.-
•
PA.'%!l7"R-1 '" "
64.
64.
a. Herodotos (Courtesyof Metro- b. Head in Athens, c. Head in
politan Museumof Art) National Museum
d. Augustus (?) from Nola (Courtesy e. Augustusfrom Prima Porta f. Augustus in Corinth
of MetropolitanMuseumof Art)
PLATE 44
a. Antonia(?) in Berlin
Hadrianfrom the Olympieion,in Athens, National Museum
a. Ephebe in Athens, National Museum b. Ephebe
A ALXAEXC i
2
- ATHENS
3 w*b 01
40
w_. ...00O
\1'
0400
6 -i "
6 0 6
i 7
.7
8
99
12 / 1l2
I7I /41
-
16 .. --. IN
16
.. , 117 •,
18
.9N
27
7
........
2172
/
20
23.. p
""23
281
j
...2-...3
24
29 2